关键词: 邮轮旅游, 电子口碑, 专家点评, 邮轮属性, 邮轮品牌

Abstract:

EWOM has become an important source of product information influencing people’s purchase decisions, especially for service, where consumption uncertainty and risk are greater than for goods. For cruise tourism, eWOM tools have become key sources of information for cruise passengers in choosing cruise companies, ships, and destinations. As such, it is critical for cruise lines to understand online WOM generated by both cruisers and experts to market brands effectively to the right consumers. According to Motivation Theory and Attribute Knowledge Theory, consumers and experts will value attributes differently based on their motivations and product-related knowledge. Extant studies related to cruise eWOM are largely based on cruiser-generated contents, few are using expert perceptions. Based on text reviews and ratings of 10 ship attributes from editors of the world’s largest online cruise community (httpw://ww.cruisecritic.com), this article evaluates 167 cruise ships from 21 cruise brands. Firstly, we use the method of word frequency to analyze the text reviews of 167 ships. By extracting high frequency words related to cruise attribute, we identify attributes that are paid high attention by experts. Then, combined with satisfaction evaluation of experts on 10 attributes of 167 ships, this paper discusses the product attributes that need to be improved in the international cruise industry in terms of attention and satisfaction. Secondly, taking the overall rating as dependent variable and 10 cruise attributes as independent variables, the factors influencing experts’ overall cruise ship ratings are identified by multiple regression analysis. Finally, we use 10 cruise attributes as categorical variables to divide 21 cruise brands by cluster analysis, and the differences between three categorizations defined by experts, defined by industry and defined by self-brand are further explored. Results show that core attributes such as cabin, dining and entertainment not only occupy the highest attention to experts’ reviews, but also become the most influential factors on the overall ship evaluations. However, relatively low evaluations by experts indicate they are critical areas for cruise companies to improve upon with urgency. The brand categorization derived from expert perception is mostly in line with that defined by industry, but notable differences in the two types of brand categorizations are also identified. Variance analysis further shows that the expert-derived cruise brand categorization is more informative than that defined by industry. The main contribution of this research is a clarified understanding of the reviews conveyed by expert, which offers insights for third-party opinion platforms and cruise practitioners in optimizing brand positioning and improving information value of online word-of-mouth.

Key words: cruise tourism, eWOM, expert review, cruise attributes, cruise brand