Role of user-generated photos in online hotel reviews: An analytical approach

Abstract While user-generated content has been studied extensively in the hospitality and tourism domain, the value of user-generated photos is not well understood due to theoretical and methodological barriers. The purpose of this study is to explore the role of user-generated photos in online hotel reviews in terms of how they are generated and how they contribute to online reviews. The research questions are examined using descriptive analysis and regression analysis based upon approximately 538,000 online hotel reviews collected from TripAdvisor. Findings show that people tend to post photos for hotels with a higher level of service or luxury or when they had a positive experience staying at hotels. User-generated photos are informative of online hotel review helpfulness and the interactions between these photos and other review information cues, such as review sentiment and review topics. Limitations and directions for future research are also discussed.