The online reputation of rural accommodation businesses in Extremadura from a geo-statistical perspective

Abstract

The continuous advances in ICT have brought to the fore new ways of communicating, especially with the arrival of Web 2.0, such as online user interaction. These developments have transformed the tourism sector in many ways; e.g., the birth of the concept of online reputation or the new management methods for rural accommodation businesses. Given these circumstances, the purpose of this study is to assess the online reputation of rural accommodation businesses in Extremadura for the year 2017, as well as its management. After a thorough analysis by means of the application of spatial statistics (as well as other methods of spatial pattern analysis), this study attests to the efficiency of spatial statistics as opposed to other techniques. Indeed, it helps pinpoint destinations where a majority of positive opinions are concentrated as well as others receiving negative opinions for the most part. In addition, spatial statistics also indicates that business managers hardly ever react to either type of opinion. Furthermore, it is shown that—regardless of users’ negative opinions about a particular business, and regardless of the insufficient reaction by the management—tourists will still visit a destination if the environmental or cultural heritage is attractive enough.