What is it about?
When booking hotels online, consumers heavily rely on aggregated electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM)—essentially the overall star rating or review score. A high rating always wins. But what happens when a hotel's reviews are just average or mediocre? This study looked at whether booking platforms can use "scarcity messages" (like “Only 2 rooms left at this price!” versus “Sale ends in 2 hours!”) to minimize the damage of okay reviews. Across two experiments covering budget and midscale hotels, we discovered that when review scores are mediocre, limited-quantity messages consistently outperform limited-time countdowns at driving bookings.
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Why is it important?
Online travel agencies (OTAs) like Booking.com, Expedia, and Agoda frequently use urgency and scarcity tactics, but until now, we didn't fully understand how these cues interact with real consumer review scores across different tiers of hotels. This paper provides a critical behavioral blueprint for the hospitality industry. It shows that scarcity isn't a one-size-fits-all tool. If a hotel has stellar reviews, any promotion works. But if a hotel has mediocre reviews, the type of scarcity message used becomes a critical defense mechanism. By shifting promotional strategies from countdown timers (limited-time) to stock alerts (limited-quantity), hotel revenue managers can actively mitigate the psychological drag of average reviews and boost conversion rates without slashing their prices further.
Perspectives
If you’ve ever booked a hotel online, you’ve undoubtedly seen flashing text warning you that rooms are running out or that a deal is about to expire. At the same time, you're constantly judging the hotel's star rating. We wanted to see what happens when these two powerful psychological triggers collide. It’s unrealistic to expect every hotel to maintain a perfect 5-star rating at all times. We wanted to find a practical, behavioral tool that helps hospitality businesses maintain steady booking volumes and revenue even during periods when their online review scores are sitting in the mediocre zone.
Prof Snehasish Banerjee
University of York
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Booking hotels online: can scarcity messages mitigate the effect of a mediocre aggregated eWOM valence?, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, April 2025, Emerald,
DOI: 10.1108/ijchm-10-2024-1531.
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