Experience sharing about hotels on TripAdvisor: motivation and preferences of brazilian tourists

This paper analyzed the dynamics of review postings of brazilian consumers about services provided by hotels on TripAdvisor. The methodology adopted was qualitative and the method used was content analysis, with the collection and codification of 371 reviews of hotels. The results showed a good perception about the quality of the services provided, with motivations related to social benefits and assistance being the most identified in the reviews. Some unfavorable aspects were also found in some reviews, such as the perception of unfair prices. Other relevant aspects were also observed and recommendations were made both for management and for future research.


INTRODUCTION
Tourists often use information for decision-taking regarding consumption during the whole cycle of a trip, and, because of the advances of information and communication technologies (ICTs), they have become frequently connected (Ivars-Baidal,Monzonís&Sánchez, 2016)to the internet through mobile devices (Biz,Neves&Bettoni 2014).Nowadays, a scenery of informational integration is seen, in which word-of-mouth communication has extended to the virtual space, becoming an important source of information regarding products and services, reflecting directly on activity of tourism.
Due to the importance of ICTs and their effects on tourists behavior, many academic studies have been produced in order to contribute with the investigation on the theme, since studies that have dedicated themselves in analyzing as well as how user-generated content in internet has changed the dynamics of tourism and have empowered tourists during the whole process of travel (Buhalis&Law, 2008;Mendes Filho, 2014), the effects of the evaluations about hotels on the process of the decision-taking by tourists, in the way hotels offer services (Vermeulen&Seegers, 2009;Philips, Barnes, Zigan&Schegg, 2017;Santos, Machado & Mayer, 2018) and the impacts of them on the reputation of hotels, sales and reservations and in the intention of tourists in reserving rooms in a hotel (Ye, Law, Gu& Chen, 2011;Tsao, Hsieh, Shih & Lin, 2015;Nieto-García, Muñoz-Gallego &González-Benito, 2017), and also the motivations for posting online reviews about hotels (Hu & Kim, 2018;Yen & Tang, 2019).
Such dynamic has also received attention from the market. According to the research "2014 ICT and Household", of all the internet users in Brazil 1 , 62% have searched online information about travel and accommodation (CGI.BR, 2015). Information about travels can be found in specific sites such as TripAdvisor, and this site is the main source of inspiration when considering a destination to visit and search for information when tourists select their destination 2 .
Although the relevance of the theme, Brazilian consumers motivations to post online reviews in specific tourism sites and their preferences and quality perceptions regarding the services offered by hotels have been little researched. This work aims to contribute to the production of knowledge in tourism fulfilling this gap. To reach such goal, 371 evaluations of Brazilian consumers on TripAdvisor were analyzed, in a qualitative form, from hotels of the 12 host cities of the 2014 World Cup, posted during the event (June 12 th to July 13 th , 2014). This study aims at contributing to a better comprehension of the Brazilian scenery, collaborating to new theoretical and management perspectives.

INFOMATION AND COMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES (ICTs) AND TOURISM
Technology and tourism have a close relationship. The most significant changes in the way tourism is practiced were provoked by ICTs, which are understood as a "technological complex that involves computers, softwares, electronic communication networks [...], digital network of services, telecommunication technologies [...] and other services" (Marcovitch 1997, apud Koltermann, 2007, which is used by people with the purpose of improving, facilitating and speeding up processes, and also to enabling offer of services and relationships with the clients, providing better interaction and customer retention. ICTs have altered the way people gain access to information and channels of distribution (Biz, 2009), being them "a driving force for innovation" (Hjalager, 2010, p. 5) that enable the access to service providers to consumers and/or using intermediaries, such as traditional or online tourism agencies (OTAs). Tourism was one of the sectors that had more benefits with internet, since agents of tourism trading have appropriated themselves of the functionalities of internet to promote their products and services, as well as enabling reservation and ticket buying systems and informations about hotels, restaurants, attractions etc. (Guimarães& Borges, 2008).
Several sites serve as aiding devices for tourists to choose their next destination, the hotel they will stay, the attractions they will visit, among other things, since those sites present information and classification of destinations, tourism attractions, restaurants and hosting options, i.e., TripAdvisor, Booking and Airbnb. This way, with the possibility to interact with other users and relate tourism experiences, making them public domain, these tourists construct dynamics of sharing tourism experiences in the online environment.

SHARING EXPERIENCES IN THE ONLINE ENVIRONMENT
In the online environment, the consumer has the power to put him or herself as a collaborator in the creation and production of value of products and services, a phenomenon called "value co-creation", in which the client participates in the processes of conception of goods and services through an exchange of knowledge between parts, as well as being based on dialogue, access, risk and transparency, understood as important points to improve the relationships between clients and companies (Prahalad& Ramaswamy, 2004).
In this sense, "companies need to make good use of the clients' skills in the management of personalized experiences, which require the cooperation of consumers" (Gomes, 2012, p. 30). It can be understood that virtual environment, since it is a facilitator in the exchange of information between consumers, serves as an aiding device to consumer decisionmaking, generating mutual learning through collaboration not only between companies and consumers, but also among consumers themselves.
Value co-creation, in services, is related to the exchange of information between consumers and companies related to the consumer experiences with products and services (Vargo&Lusch, 2004). In tourism, tourists interact with tourism services providers, friends, relatives and other tourists before, during and after the travel (Neuhofer, Buhalis&Ladkin 2012), sharing perceptions and experiences with those groups, being by text message, posting photos, videos and evaluations about the services in specific social media (Munar&Jacobsen, 2014), becoming, this way, "more powerful and actively involved" (Neuhofer, Buhalis&Ladkin, 2014, p.341)in the creation of value of the tourism experience, in a dynamic known as value co-creation.
In the online environment, value co-creation is a main part of the usergenerated content(UGC), which is all and any manifestation that internet users produce: sending files (photos, videos and documents), information and media created by general public on the internet, in which the users practice simultaneously the roles of producers and consumers of content (Arriga&Levina, 2008). The content generated by tourists in sites such as Trip Advisor have been used in a more frequent form to communicate and share information related to travels, creating expectations in tourists and serving as aiding device for travel planning (Gretzel&Yoo, 2008;Kaosiri, Fiol, Tena, Artola& García, 2019).
Sites as Trip Advisor can be defined as collaborative communities or value co-creation communities (Lee, Law & Murphy, 2011), with the users being the "critical mass" of those sites, as well as they become source of informations to others through electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). eWOMis defined as "any positive or negative declaration made by potential, current or former consumers regarding a product or company, which is available to a great number of people and institutions through the internet" (Hennig-Thurau, Gwinner, Walsh &Gremler, 2004, p. 39), and it is more influent than traditional Word-Of-Mouth (WOM) due to the speed of information spreading (Sun, Youn, Wu &Kuntaraporn, 2006). Thus, it is the  Reciprocity Affection for those who previously provided information, making them more likely to transmit their perceptions. Dellarocas, Fan & Wood, 2004 Source: Elaboration by the authors From to the information posted by the consumers, policies of promotion and distribution of products and services can be examined and reviewed, establishing relationships with the clients and ensuring a good level of satisfaction so that the opinions may stimulate buying decision, specially in hotel sector.

QUALITY IN SERVICES
Quality in services is one of the main elements that consumers take into consideration to make evaluations, being a central component of the client's perceptions (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003). The quality is "anything that the clients notice" (Grönroos, 2003, p. 85), and the company must be aware to the demands and expectations of them.
Parasuraman, Zeithaml and Berry (1988) have developed a model called SERVQUAL, which measures the quality of the service through the level of satisfaction regarding the clients' expectations. Through this model, the authors stated that consumers evaluate the quality of services based on the perceptions of five attributes called determinants of service quality, which are: (1) reliability, which is the ability to execute and deliver a promised service in a safe and precise way within the given time; (2) readiness, which is the disposition to listen to clients and provide services in an immediate way and execute them in the most proper way; (3) security, which is the knowledge of staff about the service to be developed to inspire trust and credibility in clients; (4) empathy, which is the individualized attention and care offered to the clients, in addition to polish treatment; (5) tangible, which is related to physical appearance of the installations, equipment, personal appearance of staff, among other aspects (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003). reception, administration, room service) and in the appearance and comfort of rooms, quality of food and breakfast, for instance (Almeida, 2010).

Researches dedicated to the hotel niche in
It is important to mention that price is not a direct determinant of quality (Grönroos, 2003), but it's a dimension that influences in the clients' satisfaction, since consumers use price as base to attest quality of a product or service (Mayer & Ávila, 2015). To the consumer, an increase in the price of reference may be considered fair or acceptable if the profit of reference is threatened by an increase in the company's costs, for example; however, if the consumer understands that the company raises the prices to obtain an arbitral increase of profits, the price will be considered unfair or abusive, which will affect the image and trust of the consumer regarding the company (Mayer & Ávila, 2015).
The result of quality perceived by clients, when their needs and expectations with the service are fulfilled and whether certain level of pleasure provided by the consumption is obtained, is clients' satisfaction, which is related to a group of positive emotions. Otherwise, when expectations are not fulfilled, the result is the clients' dissatisfaction (Zeithaml & Bitner, 2003), and satisfaction as well as dissatisfaction may influence in the consumer's fidelity.
Consumer's fidelity is the behavioral intent to maintain a long-term relationship with the service provider (Sirdeshmukh, Singh &Sabol, 2002). The consequences of fidelity present themselves in the attitudes of the consumer before and after the consumption experience: rebuy, less sensitivity to price and company's recommendations through positive word-to-mouth (Santos &Fernandes, 2008).
Although fidelity is an expected result of the clients' satisfaction with service, the quality of the service is not always capable of leading a client to pay again for the same service, especially in hospitality (Pizam, Shapoval& Ellis, 2016;Worlsfoldet al., 2016). Some reasons for tourism consumers hardly be faithful to a specific hotel or hospitality network (even though the client feels satisfied with the service) are: the fact that tourists don't return to a place regularly and; if they returns to an already visited place, they can choose to experience services of different providers, either to have a new consumption experience or to consider the price of a different service provider more attractive (Kotler, Bowen & Makens, 1998).

METHODOLOGY
This study is qualitative and exploratory regarding its ends and, regarding its means, it is telematized, once to obtain the information the use of computer and telecommunication were necessary (Collis & Hussey, 2005;Vergara, 1997).
To perform it, it was decided that the content to be analyzed would be collected on TripAdvisor, relevant website of tourist-generated content (Litvin, Goldsmith & Pan, 2008;O'Connor, 2010). Since the purpose was to analyze reviews posted by brazilian consumers regarding hotels, it was chosen to consider only reviews about this category. Evaluations posted during the 2014 FIFA World Cup were gathered (June 12th to July 13th of that year), performed in Brazil, due to the great number of national tourists circulating during the event. One hotel of each of the host cities was chosen, being the chosen hotels those that presented the higher number of reviews during the defined period by city.
Since the establishment of these criteria of sampling, the ten most reviewed hotels of each host city were researched. The choice of the ten most reviewed hotels is justified by the possibility of existing an expressive number of reviews in the chosen period for sampling. After this procedure, a research was performed in the pages of each 120 hotels to gather the number of reviews that the hotels had in the period of June 12th to July 13th, 2014 (also to determine which hotel would be in the sample), resulting in the number of 376 evaluations.
The 376 evaluations were extracted from TripAdvisor and organized in alphanumeric way in a spreadsheet using Microsoft Office Excel software.
The codes were defined according to the IATA code of each city and in the order that they were entered in the spreadsheet. This way, the codes regarding evaluations of the chosen hotel in Salvador, for example, were organized as SSA 001, SSA 002... SSA n (IATA code of Salvador and number of reviews, being n the maximum number of posted reviews by the defined period for the data collection). The evaluations were previously analyzed so that repetitions and outdated experiences were avoided 4 , resulting in 371 valid evaluations to be treated and analyzed.
For the treatment of data, the method of content analysis was chosen, which is understood as a search mechanism for observational research, in which systematical analysis are performed to evaluate content and characteristics of textual elements and other forms of communication, in a way to make replicable inferences and validate data to the study's context (Bardin, 1977;Stepchenkova, 2012).
For the analysis of the reviews, categories of analysis based on theoretical reference with the purpose of identifying the following were established: the motivation for posting evaluations, as described in table 1; the aspects highlighted in the evaluation (physical structure, attendance, food, drinks and price)-determinants of the perceived quality (Grönroos, 2003;Zeithaml& Bitner, 2003;Almeida, 2010), in addition to sensorial aspects (smell/odor, level of noise and perception of comfort); level of satisfaction of users; recommendation and intention to return to the hotel (Kotler, Bowen &Makens, 1998;Pizam, Shapoval& Ellis, 2016;Worlsfoldet al., 2016).
After the analysis of the reviews and all items being identified, the reviews and variables received numeric codes in a way to be transferred to the statistical software Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS), in order to obtain a statistical analysis of the data, as, for example, the frequency in which the following were observed: motivation; mentions to certain attributes (cleaning and comfort, for example) or equipment (gym and restaurant, for example) and the way that such attributes were mentioned (favorable, unfavorable or neutral), so that, from these quantitative data, qualitative analysis of the obtained results could be made.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
According to the criteria defined in the methodology to determine the sample of hotel and reviews, hotels that belong to the sample of this study are exposed in table 2.
Table2: Hotels of the sample and number of reviews Regarding the content of reviews, the majority is of favorable reviews, with 322 favorable reviews against 49 unfavorable. These numbers are reinforced by the level of satisfaction that consumers stated having had in their experiences, once high levels of satisfaction (grades from 4 to 5) were pointed out by 295 users, indicating that hotels provided a satisfactory service during the period in which reviews were posted.
Regarding motivations, a higher occurrence of functional motivation (n = 245) was observed, as it can be seen in It can be stated with these results that consumer that posts reviews with functional motivation, social benefits and altruism has the tendency to provide reviews with favorable nature, which is sustained by 233 favorable reviews with functional motivation, 38 motivated by social benefits and 26 by altruism. It can be also noticed that reviews motivated by letting off steam (n = 18), which is by the purpose of releasing tensions created by flaws in service providing, were all unfavorable, which is likely of this type of motivation (Hennig-Thurauet al.,2004;Litvin, Goldsmith & Pan,2008).
It is possible to observe a balance in the level of reviews motivated by consumer empowerment, being 14 favorable and 16 unfavorable. This can be explained by the fact that this motivation works as guarantee of the clients being able to wield their influence over the company, admitting reviews either positive as well negative (Hennig-Thurauet al., 2004;Bronner&Hoog, 2011).
In reviews motivated by consumer empowerment with negative level, the consumers generally highlighted what happened negatively in their experience and they expect for the company's attitude so that the following does not happen again, as it can be seen in the statement below: The hotel (previous Formule 1) is little prepared to receive its guests, with the exception of housekeeping, who are kind and sweet. The other staffs, mainly receptionists and bodyguards, need to be recycled, since they do not know how to handle clients. (TRIPADVISOR, 2015, our highlights, our translation Of all the aspects that users evaluated, the most reviewed was hotel's physical structures. Some of the items analyzed in this category were: bathrooms, closets, leisure area and others, being the most commented item the room's design, appearing in 122 reviews and, in great majority, in a positive way (n= 73). It can be understood with these numbers that it is fundamental to any hospitality company to have a good presentation of physical installations, since as seen in this study, this is one of the most important factors that clients take into consideration when evaluating the experience on the internet. This means that hospitality companies that want to upgrade their online reputation and attract new clients should invest and verify carefully cleaning and decoration of the physical ambience.
In the category food and beverage (F &B), reviews were grouped and analyzed when mentioning breakfast and the restaurant, and regarding this category, most reviews were positive (n= 127).
In the evaluation of attendance and services, there was a predominance of positive reviews. Negative reviews referring to attendance, although a few, showed problems in the execution of the provided services of those hotels, mainly in the areas of reservation and payment. However, a single review can approach this category negatively and positively at the same time, as seen in the review below: My reasonable grade refers to some problems we had in altering the reservations that we previously had done, when we noticed a lack of good will from the staff in helping us. This consumer showed negative impressions regarding attendance staff, although he/she had a good impression regarding room service and restaurant and cleaning staffs, which corroborates the idea of Mayer, Machado, Marques & Nunes (2019, p. 14) in which tourists are exposed to a "series of factors that influence, positively or negatively, their levels of wellbeing" and, consequently, in their evaluations.
Regarding sensorial aspects, comfort was quoted in 43 reviews and evaluated positively in 38; in the item noise, there was a balance in the level of reviews (11 positive e 10 negative), meanwhile in the reviews that there was mention of smell/odor, despite a few (n= 8), most were negative (n= 6).
According to Almeida (2010), the aspects of cleaning and decoration, before the clients' eyes, restaurant food, smell, among others, are fundamental in clients' evaluation, in a way that any mistake will make the experience, that in general can be good, perceived as bad.
Decoration, as well services of food and beverages and attendance sector, should receive investments of improvement and polishing, once these elements help supporting the perception of clients' perceived quality (Almeida, 2010). Problems noticed by guests regarding these items can be highlighted in their reviews, resulting in probable loss of potential clients and hotel's recommendations.
Prices charged by the hotels were mentioned in 70 reviews, being evaluated as fair in 48. In those that considered prices as unfair (n =7), outrages were noticed regarding the prices charged by hotels due to the 2014 FIFA World Cup, event for which a great number of foreign tourists was expected in Brazil and that made some hotels raise their prices in an arbitral way.
When evaluating the price charged by hotels, consumers use as base the price they consider reasonable and the judgment of intentions of managers of hotels, which proved that when a company raises the price charged to increase their profits in an arbitral way, taking advantage of a favorable scenery, clients feel wronged and judge the price as unfair and abusive (Mayer&Ávila, 2015). This practice is not well seen by consumers, and the companies must have the understanding that the existence of competition may affect the buying behavior of tourists, as well as the intentions of buying and recommendation.
Hotel's locations were quoted in 239 reviews, being evaluated as positive in 219 of them. Positive reviews regarding hotels locations referred many times to the surroundings of the hotel and the proximity to interest points or airports.
On the other hand, hotels in which the location was referred negatively, users pointed out that, according to their perception, the location is bad and how that influenced in the cost-benefit of the travel. It can be stated, thus, that location has an important function in the decision-making process of consumer to choose whether to use hotel services or not, and in the intention of recommending such hotel to other possible consumers.
It can be stated with these results that the main factor which consumers take into consideration in the evaluations of the experiences as tangible aspects, once the sensorial contact is one of the first contacts that the consumer has with the establishment.
It is important to mention the fact that in a single review, the user can mention one or more determinants of perceived quality, in a way that one can be evaluated positively and the other(s) negatively, regardless the general level of the review, as seen in the following review: Problems found in tangible aspects can (and should) be repaired with repairs, effective cleaning services, among others. However, problems found in service contacts should be treated carefully to be corrected. The better way to correct these problems is investing in the training of staff so that they will become capable to recognize the needs of guests and have autonomy to perform tasks beyond their regular obligations (Kotler, Bowen & Makens, 1998). However, it is important that staff have the perception of when to go beyond normal is really necessary, once clients can choose only a basic proper service.
Regarding consumer fidelity to service provider, two categories of analysis were chosen: hotel recommendation and intention to return to the establishment in the future (Kotler, Bowen & Makens,1998;Pizam, Shapoval& Ellis, 2016;Worlsfoldet al., 2016). There were few situations in which hotel recommendation was opposite to the general level of the review, but it is interesting to pay attention to this data. It is noticed this characteristic of recommendation with opposite degree to the level of recommendation in reviews in which users demonstrated willingness to be useful to other users and/or worries regarding the hotel and other tourists, as it can be seen in the following review: For quick travels, in which location is fundamental [...] be aware that, in certain promotions, you might stay in better hotels paying less.
It is noticed that, although the review presented a favorable level and the user quotes location in a positive way, the user also says that others might stay in better hotels for a cheaper price. The following review is a case of unfavorable review with positive recommendation, opposite example of the It can be observed in the review above that the user, despite showing discontent with the way that the hotel presented itself, considers the hotel good, with a good staff team, but that at the time the user stayed at the hotel, it needed maintenance and improvement in the tangible aspects and cleaning.

FINAL CONSIDERATIONS
Sharing information on the internet through social media has put WOM into virtual environment, establishing a new dynamic in the relations between clients and companies, allowing clients to freely express their opinions in the digital environment -the eWOM. Tourists increasingly base their consumption decisions on the reports from other tourists available online, thus, managers should be aware to those behaviors.
The results of this present work have shown that hotel services from the sample were well-evaluated by tourists during the mega event period.
However, hotel managers should be aware of the clients' online complaints, to improve the quality of their services. In addition, it is important to be careful with arbitral increase of prices during events, since this can generate negative reviews and harm the image of the establishment. Therefore, from this study, it can be stated that brazilian tourists prefer the choice of low-cost hosting.
The results have shown that functionality is one of the main motivations for posting reviews of hospitality services among brazilian tourists from this study. However, questions such as social benefits and consumer empowerment have also motivated a considerable number of reviews, suggesting that the behavior of evaluation of the experiences in hospitality are not characterized only by the supplying of basic information, but also by the wish to collaborate, mutual aid, learning in consumption and guarantee of quality of the provided service.
It is important to mention that hotels from the sample were not all from the same category (although half of them belong to the same chain), and because consumers create different expectations over different categories of hotels, the results are limited. It is also important to take into consideration the natural restrictions when searching to identify motivational elements in textual evaluations. However, it is important to emphasize that the produced texts by consumers highlight thoughts and feelings of these individuals and may be considered as a more spontaneous source of information, less biased that data obtained through personal interviews and surveys.
Therefore, due to the limitations of this study, it is recommended that future studies approach different types of hotels, adopt random procedures for sampling and dedicate themselves to new categories of analysis, such as, for example, the emotions involved in the experiences of consumption in the hotel and aspects of hospitality, so that obtained results can be more representative of local, regional and national realities.
It is also suggested that new comparative studies should be performed with a more recent sample, so that it be possible to identify whether the results relative to the pricing of hotels have had highlight due to the execution of the mega event or if it is establishing as a more relevant category for brazilian tourist. It is also necessary to understand the attention that managers give to the content of these tourism services platforms, such as TripAdvisor and Booking, for example. At last, other possibility would be the production of comparative studies in hospitality between, during and after the execution of important events so that public managers may identify whether consumers have indicated variations in the perceived quality of services due to these events.