Given the increasing information overload among users of online review websites, understanding the manner in which cognitive costs are reduced and efficient information is made reliable has become increasingly important. This study targets a unique consumer review design and explores how reviews from an external peer-to-peer site embedded in an online travel agency (OTA) website influence subsequent evaluation behaviors. The empirical results indicate that (1) embedded external reviews with a high average valence tend to strengthen the influence of the positive evaluation ratio while diminishing the effect of the review volume, and (2) embedded external reviews with a large variance strengthen the positive effect of the review volume while weakening the effect of the positive evaluation ratio on subsequent positive evaluations. The findings provide practical insights for consumers and online platforms.

This study examines the scientific publications on website evaluation in hospitality and tourism from 2010 to 2023 through a systematic review and discusses implications for future research. The reviewed literature from publication years, journals, research methods, website-related stakeholders, context, various forms of Internet presence (Internet forms), and theories are analyzed to create a comprehensive website evaluation dimension. Furthermore, a conceptual framework is developed to show the relationship between the website characteristics, stakeholders-channels interaction, and stakeholders' reactions. The proposed website evaluation framework in hospitality and tourism synthesizes the existing knowledge, identifies gaps, and further advances our understanding of this research area.

This research aims to understand the role of online reviews in the local search context by examining the effects of reviews on the representation of tourism businesses on local search platforms (LSPs). By simulating tourists' local searches for restaurants on three LSPs, namely Google, Bing, and Yelp, this study examines how different ranking results are generated across the platforms and how online reviews contribute to the differences. The findings suggest that online reviews are incorporated into LSPs as ranking factors and, thus, affect tourists' decision-making by influencing the information search results in the local search context. As one of the earliest studies on local search, this study discusses how the existing knowledge about the role of online reviews in tourists' decision-making needs to be reevaluated in mobile and more dynamic environments, and offers practical implications for tourism businesses' search engine marketing.