- Title
- Hotel Responses to Online Reviews: The Opening and Closing Move Structures in Rapport Management
- Creator
- Taw, Ly Wen; Paramasivam, Shamala; Libert, Alan Reed; Darmi, Ramiza Binti; Jalaluddin, Ilyana Binti
- Relation
- The 2nd Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics International Conference. Proceedings of The 2nd Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics International Conference (Kuala Lumpur, Malyasia 08-10 September, 2021) p. 159-159
- Relation
- http://irep.iium.edu.my/93135/4/MALLIC-E-PROGRAM-BOOKV49.pdf
- Publisher
- Malaysian Association of Applied Linguistics
- Resource Type
- conference paper
- Date
- 2021
- Description
- Technological advances have had a considerable role in the evolution of communication media. With the rise of digital communication, the transformation from traditional Word-of-Mouth (WOM) to electronic Word-of-Mouth (eWOM) has seen the latter become increasingly influential in social media marketing. In the hotel industry, consumers have become more reliant on online reviews in their selection of hotels. The active participation of hotel management in responses to online reviews builds consumer trust and establishes a positive online reputation. Using Spencer-Oatey’s (2008) Rapport Management Model (RMM), the present study explores the rapport management strategies that 30 Malaysian hotels used to respond to online reviews from the RMM discourse domain. In particular, the opening and closing move structures in hotel responses were examined with the Genre Analysis Model (Bhatia, 1993). The responses from Malaysian hotels with five-, four-, and three-star ratings were collected from the world’s largest online travel website, TripAdvisor, using purposeful sampling. These hotels are situated in tourist destinations in the capital , Kuala Lumpur, and four states of Malaysia. The findings demonstrate the difference in formality in the writing styles. The five- and four-star hotels were inclined to use a more formal writing style, while the three-star hotel management preferred to use a slightly informal writing style to manage rapport with reviewers. These findings provide insights into the management of virtual rapport by Malaysian hotels with their consumers via digital platforms.
- Subject
- online reviews; rapport management; hotel responses; move structures; TripAdvisor
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1467948
- Identifier
- uon:47947
- Language
- eng
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