The Influence of Hotel Price on Perceived Service Quality and Value in e-tourism

RESEARCH HYPOTHESES

Prior studies show that perceptions of both quality and value affect customer 

satisfaction (Cronin, Brady, & Hult, 2000; Jiang, Gretzel, & Law, 2010; Lee, 2010; 

Tung, 2004). Customers tend to first express their general (dis)satisfaction and then 

go into details about their experience. According to findings from previous research, 

room cleanliness, convenience of location, value for money, the friendliness of 

staff, price, emotional and social value, emotional response, and reputation are 

all regarded as important factors in the process of assessing service quality and 

value (Callan & Kyndt, 2001; Choi & Chu, 2001; Lockyer, 2003; Petrick, 2002; 

Sweeney & Soutar, 2001). Thus, booking websites adopt more detailed ratings as a 

supplement to an overall score, in an attempt to reflect customers’ experience more 

clearly. For instance, Figure 1 illustrates one customer’s review of the Hilton Beijing 

on daodao.com. Customers will not only evaluate the hotel in general but also 

describe its service quality and value in detail.

To a certain extent, online customer reviews reflect satisfaction with prod-

ucts or services (Jiang et al., 2010). In addition, customer satisfaction is a reflec-

tion of service quality and value. Thus, in online hotel reviews, the overall 

rating posted by a customer for a given hotel will be a combination of the scores 

assigned to each of these dimensions.