What is the impact of eWOM in social network sites on travel decision-making during the COVID-19 outbreak? A two-stage methodology

Mehrbakhsh Nilashi; Rabab Ali Abumalloh; Mesfer Alrizq; Abdullah Alghamdi; Sarminah Samad; Ahmed Almulihi; Maha M Althobaiti; Muhammed Yousoof Ismail; Saidatulakmal Mohd

doi:10.1016/j.tele.2022.101795

What is the impact of eWOM in social network sites on travel decision-making during the COVID-19 outbreak? A two-stage methodology

Telemat Inform. 2022 Apr:69:101795. doi: 10.1016/j.tele.2022.101795. Epub 2022 Feb 24.

Authors

Mehrbakhsh Nilashi¹, Rabab Ali Abumalloh², Mesfer Alrizq³, Abdullah Alghamdi³, Sarminah Samad⁴, Ahmed Almulihi⁵, Maha M Althobaiti⁵, Muhammed Yousoof Ismail⁶, Saidatulakmal Mohd⁷

Affiliations

¹ Centre for Global Sustainability Studies (CGSS), Universiti Sains Malaysia, 11800 USM Penang, Malaysia.
² Computer Department, Applied College, Imam Abdulrahman Bin Faisal University, P.O. Box. 1982, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
³ Information Systems Dept., College of Computer Science and Information Systems, Najran University, Najran, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ Department of Business Administration, College of Business and Administration, Princess Nourah bint Abdulrahman University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Department of Computer Science, College of Computers and Information Technology, Taif University, P.O.Box 11099, Taif 21944 Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Department of MIS, Dhofar University, Oman.
⁷ Centre for Global Sustainability Studies & School of Social Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Malaysia.

Abstract

Social media users share a variety of information and experiences and create Electronic Word of Mouth (eWOM) in the form of positive or negative opinions to communicate with others. In the context of the COVID-19 outbreak, eWOM has been an effective tool for knowledge sharing and decision making. This research aims to reveal what factors of eWOM can influence travelers' trust in their decision-making to travel during the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, we aim to find the relationships between trust in eWOM and perceived risk, and perceived risk and the decision to travel. These relationships are investigated based on online customers' reviews in TripAdvisor's COVID-19 forums. We use a two-stage data analysis which includes cluster analysis and structural equation modeling. In the first stage, a questionnaire survey was designed and the data was collected from 1546 respondents by referring to the COVID-19 forums on TripAdvisor. Specifically, we use k-means to segment the users' data into different groups. In the second stage, Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was performed to inspect the relations between the variables in the hypothesized research model using a subsample of 679 respondents. The results of the first stage of the analysis showed that three segments could be discovered from the collected data for trust based on eWOM source and eWOM message attributes. These segments clearly showed that there are significant relationships between trust and perceived risk, and between perceived risk and the decision to travel. The results in all segments showed that users with a low level of trust have a high level of perceived risk and a low level of intention to travel during the COVID-19 outbreak. In addition, it was found that users with a high level of e-trust have a low level of perceived risk and a high level of intention to travel. These results were confirmed in all segments and these relationships were confirmed by SEM. The results of SEM revealed that visual and external information moderated the relationship between eWOM length and trust, and experience moderated the relationship between trust and perceived risk. For the moderating role of gender, it was found that the perceived risk has a higher impact on the decision to travel in the female sample.

Keywords: COVID-19 outbreak; Electronic word of mouth; Knowledge sharing; Perceived risk; Travel plan; Trust.