Do reviews really affect your hotel decision? : A study about what impact reviews have on the consumers buying decision in the hotel industry.

Abstract: Background Today the hotel industry has become very digitalized compared to when there was only a travel catalogue to look in. Nowadays people search for information about hotels and read reviews from past guests online. There are different kinds of accommodations and lately it has become popular with shared services like Airbnb. With the rise of digitalization the hotel market competition has increased tremendously, therefore it is important for the hotels to keep a good reputation. Services like a hotel stay can be experienced differently from person to person and thus it is important for the service personnel to possess emotional intelligence.  Purpose The purpose with this study is to find out how the consumer behavior changes depending on the reviews. The study should give knowledge to hotel management about how it is possible to improve their relationship with guests by service, reviews and the use of digitalization. This study wants to update the research on the topic reviews and how it affects the consumers when booking a hotel with new information since the technology changes constantly and thus some research about the field in the past might not mirror the reality today.  Method This study was conducted using a quantitative method survey study in the form of an internet questionnaire. This questionnaire contained mostly closed ended questions however there were some open questions that allowed the participants to name a factor that was important for them. The survey used convenience sampling to be able to receive a lot of answers quickly. To ensure that the answers were of good quality anonymous answers has been applied and there was a qualification question that can sort out unqualified and spam answers to obtain the best quality. To analyze the results from the survey, descriptive analytics and statistical inference will be used and compared with previous research. The statistical analysis will be done by SPSS (Statistical Package for the Social Sciences) and Excel.  Conclusion  The study has come to the conclusion that reviews affect and have an impact on all the different stages in the consumer decision making process. The study also conclude that it is important for the hotel to try to increase the number of reviews since with the rise of reviews the more trustworthy the reviews will be. The study also concluded that it has become important with digitalization in the hotel industry and that 29,5% of the study participants use the mobile app when booking a hotel. Thus, the hotel management must follow and adapt the hotel to the new way of communication.