7. Conclusion
It is not certain whether there is connection between user behavioral types and motivations to write reviews online as I was not able to measure the right variables against one another, thus this question is still unanswered, however, it can be taken for future research.
We did, however, find out how eWOM and Social Exchange theory define the motivations of online review contributors, and we did establish and found through empirical evidence what motivates hotel guests to share their experiences of TripAdvisor. Also, according to Social Exchange theory cost-benefit factor can function as a barrier that can prevent the person to engage in an (review writing) activity despite the motivations and activity level, because if writing a review is too costly and benefits have low value to the person, then he/she will not engage in writing a review. The survey could be repeated in a few samples from different seasons of the year in this way to compare and validate the assumptions.
Future Perspectives
Additional question could be added to the questionnaire in future questionnaires that would help to find out why those respondents, who say that they do not considered writing reviews, do not want to do it? That would imply that the collected data would be of a qualitative kind, and should be coded differently, i.e. by pattern-matching method, for example.
For future perspectives looking focusing on TripAdvisor alone - it is possible to question the reliability and trustworthiness of anonymous content created there. TripAdvisor does not require to confirm the users’ identity to be able to write reviews, thus fake reviews as well as fake profiles on TripAdvisor are rather problematic endeavors revealing a contradictory balance act between transparency and necessary control mechanisms.…
