How Far, How Near Psychological Distance Matters in Online Travel Reviews: A Test of Construal-Level Theory

An online travel review is regarded as more important than a general product review due to the tourism product’s intangibleness. This study’s objective is to explore the effect of online travel reviews’ usefulness to the tourist’s perception using the construal-level theory (CLT). For this goal, online travel reviews are divided based on the review content characteristics, and the review usefulness of two different online reviews is compared using the temporal distance. The results show that the near future tourists are more influenced by concrete reviews than abstract reviews; however, the far future tourists are more influenced by abstract reviews than concrete reviews. Based on the results, the theoretical and practical implications are discussed, and future research directions follow based on the limitations.

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