Customer Ratings as a Tool for the Information Asymmetry Reduction in the Hospitality Market
Customer Ratings as a Tool for the Information Asymmetry Reduction in the Hospitality Market

Summary/Abstract: One of the important stages of the buying process is seeking the information whichshould be valid, reliable and consistent with the current demand. Nowadays, in the informationsociety, the source of this information is no longer primarily a service provider(eg. the hotel), but other consumers who have benefited from these services.The aimof this study is to make a comparative analysis of the methods for generating customerratings of the hotels in the available online resources (online travel agencies and hotele-intermediaries, hotel search engines, providers of travel reviews and social media).As a research tool, a critical review of the literature is used and exploration of onlineresources has been made. The study clearly shows that the customer rating systems arehighly heterogeneous. Both the number and type of evaluation criteria, rating scaleand definitions of reviewers are the factors which have significantly differentiatedthe analyzed systems. However, this heterogeneity and many other disadvantages suchas the subjectivism of advisers, significant discrepancies between reviews et al., do notundermine these systems’ usefulness in reducing information asymmetry in the hospitalitymarket and in the decision-making process by the client.

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