The longer the better? The impact of online review length on tourist trust and visit intention

Abstract

Research has demonstrated that long online reviews tend to inspire more trust than short reviews do. However, the effect of review length on trust overlooks the influence of advertisement suspicion on author identity and, more specifically, the different levels of trust and visit intention inspired by Internet celebrities versus amateurs. To address this research gap, three studies were conducted. The results showed that tourists have higher levels of trust and visit intention in long reviews than in short reviews when they know that the reviews are posted by an amateur rather than an Internet celebrity. Interestingly, the reason for this phenomenon is consumers' suspicion that long reviews written by Internet celebrities are advertisements, and thus they perceive such reviews as less credible. Further, conformity, as well as the primed interdependent self-construal, breaks the interference of the author's identity, and thus advertising suspicion disappears.