Puzzling out characteristics of ewom inducing vietnamese millennials’ possibility of booking hotels via online travel agency sites

Puzzling out Characteristics of Ewom Inducing Vietnamese
Millennials’ Possibility of Booking Hotels via Online Travel
Agency Sites
Vuong Thao Nguyen
Tran Tien Khoa
Nguyen Van Phuong
International University, Vietnam National University HCMC, Vietnam
Abstract
This paper aims to puzzle out factors contributing to the proposed set of hypothesized
relationships
inducing perceived electronic worth-of-mouth (eWOM) credibility and purchase intention of
Vietnamese
Millennials when seeking for hotel reviews on Online Travel Agencies’ (OTAs) site. The study
uses a
quantitative approach throughout surveying 365 correspondents in social network sites from
February to
April of 2018. The findings illustrated that booking intention of Vietnamese Millennials was
affected mostly
by source trustworthiness. Some notable peculiarities in research findings due to the potential
differences in
nature of OTAs’ site have contributed to the debate of existing eWOM literature. Specifically,
the current
findings not only enrich understanding of factors inducing perceived eWOM credibility but also
benefit
marketers by providing preliminary recommendations in approaching Vietnamese
Millennial eWOM
receivers, also known as the most potential consumers, on OTAs’ platform via credible eWOM
initiatives.
Keywords:
agency;

electronic
eWOM

worth-of-mouth;
eWOM; online travel
credibility;
Vietnam

hospitality industry; Vietnamese Millennials
JEL codes: D91, M, Z3, Z32
1. Introduction
Undoubtedly, the rise of internet and internet applications have enabled people to easily share
information, experiences, and thoughts, regardless of either location and time constraints (Allsop,
Bassett, & Hoskins, 2007). Due to the dramatic increase in the amount of consumer-generated
media (CGM) platforms, there are shifts from traditional word-of-mouth (WOM) communication to a
myriad of electronic communities and virtual networks (Lee, Park, & Han, 2008; Ye, Law, Gu, & Chen,
2011). Notably, one of which is the transferring into electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM)
communication. The fact that consumers tend to favor online users’ recommendations recently to
make purchase decisions instead of advertising and professional advice drops a hint that eWOM
could be considered as a powerful marketing force (Park, Lee, & Han, 2007; Lee et al., 2008).
According to Litvin, Goldsmith, and Pana (2008), the influence of eWOM on hospitality industry
seems to be more significant than any other sectors. Hospitality industry provides experienced


goods (e.g., lodging services and dining), whose quality is usually unknown before actual
consumption (Xie, Zhang, & Zhang, 2014). Thereupon, consumers now prefer to seek numerous
reviews from various information platforms before making a hotel reservation. According to a global
survey of PhocusWright among 12,000 leisure travelers, over 80% of them read at least 6-12
reviews on TripAdvisors.com before making a purchase decision (Tnooz, 2014). The result of an
investigation conducted by eMarketer (2013) also attracted our notice.

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eMarketer revealed that internet reviews and Online Travel Agency (OTA) sites are travelers’
first two choices, followed by Facebook when they search for traveling information. As ranked in
top two, OTA sites serve as information centers where people can either search for information,
maintain connections, develop relationships or make travel decisions conveniently and costeffectively (Stepchenkova, Mills, & Jiang, 2007). Thanks to less biased reviews of higher
credibility, OTA sites are very popular (e.g., Booking.com, Agoda.com) (Kim, & Hardin, 2010;
Litvin et al., 2008).
For this study, Vietnam was chosen as the specific setting for our empirical study. Recently,
the dramatic increase in the number of Vietnamese internet users has reshaped the interaction
channels between consumers and product images, which increases the chances for online
social interactions. According to Internet Live Stats (2016), the total internet users in Vietnam
accounted for 52% of Vietnam Population. Notably, Vietnamese consumers are willing to spend
25 hours per week on average browsing online social networks and interacting with other
online users (eMarketer, 2016). Besides, Vietnam is well known for its diverse tourism
potentials. According to Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (2016), there was a
dramatic increase in a number of 3-5 stars tourist accommodation in the 2013-2015 period,
specifically from 598 to 747. These evidence give a hint of enormous opportunities regarding
hospitality industry in Vietnam, including new OTA sites targeting Vietnamese online users.
With regard to the official statistic of Vietnam General Statistics Office (2002) in “Population
Population structure by sex. Age group and sex ratio (males/100 females)” in the 2001-2002
period, Vietnamese Millennials comprise about approximately 40 percent of the country’s
population of Vietnamese Millennials account for about 40 percent of the country’s population.
Another worth noting study of Zemke, Raines, and Filipczak (2000) early stated that this
generation will be shaped into the current high-tech, neo-optimistic time and will represent the
most technological adepts. Kersten (2002) also found the first characteristic springs to mind
when mentioned about Millennials is their comfort with technology. Existing literature also
hinted that Millennials would xf society into a new world of personal information by sharing and

disclosing via social media and mobile technology (Bilgihan, Okumus, & Cobanoglu, 2013).
Notably, Bolton et al. (2013) claimed that the Millennials’ behavior could indicate future
consumer behavior since they are about to become potential consumers of service products in
the hospitality industry. Four years later, in 2017, Nielsen reported on its official website that
the Millennials had traveled more frequently than any other generation, including Baby
Boomers, and they will likely travel more due to the increase in incomes and financial
standings. Above all, the crux of the matter is that their preferences are sufficiently raveled for
researchers to predict as they are much more different from other previous generations.
However, this difficulty has motivated us to further extend existing literature by studying about
this generation. It is noticeable that Millennials generation in this study are any individuals born
from 1981 to 2000 (Zemke et al., 2000).
As a side note, Wathen and Burkell (2002) concluded that receivers tend to adopt any senders’
eWOM having higher credibility. Sources of eWOM credibility later appear to attract more and more
attention of not only academic researchers (e.g., Awad, & Ragowsky, 2008; Cheung, Luo, Sia, &
Chen, 2009; Lin, & Fang, 2006) but also practical marketers’. The fact that eWOM has long gained
credibility in consumers’ perception (Leung, Law, Hoof, & Buhalis, 2013) and becoming a significant
product reputation signals affecting consumers’ purchase decisions when seeking for hotels
motivates us to study about the eWOM credibility. There are also several prior studies focusing on
eWOM in the hotel industry in recent years. Many of them measured the impact of eWOM credibility
on purchase intention as mediated by various mediation such as trust (Wu, 2013), perceived value,
perceived risk (Liang, Choi, & Joppe, 2017) or response ratio (Xie, Zhang, Zhang, Singh, & Lee,
2016). But few of them measured the direct impact of eWOM credibility on purchase intention.
Another study worth noting of Tsao and Hsieh (2015) noticed a shift in recently focused research
topics toward eWOM quality. eWOM with high quality is considered to enhance perceived eWOM
credibility and purchase intention (Jensen, Averbeck, Zhang, & Wright, 2013; Jiménez, & Mendoza,
2013; Zhao, Lu, Wang, Chau, & Zhang, 2012). At current, this matter has not been investigated
toward product offerings, especially in


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Vietnam. Besides, this research is aimed to contribute to the controversial topic on factors
inducing eWOM credibility, especially in OTA environment. While the study of
Shamhuyenhanzva, Malon, Tonder, Lombard and Hemsworth (2016) pointed out the partial
mediation through source trustworthiness of interestingness, homophily, and authority on
eWOM credibility; much of the existing literature would rather use expertise than authority to
measure eWOM credibility (Lis, 2013; Tsao, & Hsieh, 2015).
In sum, adapted from three main empirical studies (Tsao, & Hsieh, 2015; Lis, 2013;
Shamhuyenhanzva et al., 2016), this study aims to (1) examine what factors significantly
induce perceived eWOM credibility of reviews on OTA sites; (2) investigate the direct impact
level of perceived eWOM credibility on purchase intention; (3) identify the mediation effects.
2. Literature Review
2.1. E-WOM Credibility
Source credibility refers to the expected ability of the information source to generate factual,
accurate and credible information (Cheung et al., 2009; Dou, Walden, Lee, & Lee, 2012). The
more credible online review is perceived, the greater chance that reviews’ seekers will make
purchase decisions (Nabi, & Hendriks, 2003). According to Tsao and Hsieh (2015), perceived
eWOM credibility is an antecedent to purchase intention. Their finding is also supported by the
work of Jiménez and Mendoza (2013). Regarding the context of this study, if the Millennial
online users perceived hotel reviews on OTA sites as credible, they might use it to make a
reservation. Concerning Tsao and Hsieh (2015), this study solely used positive phrasing for all
of eWOM content to ensure eWOM content’s valence. Therefore,
Hypothesis 1. Perceived credibility of positive eWOM significantly induces purchase
intention. Source of eWOM credibility
Besides, many classical studies share a general agreement that source expertise and source
trustworthiness are two major determinants of information credibility (Applbaum and Anatol,
1972; Ohanian, 1990; Lis, 2013; Tsao and Hsieh, 2015).
Source Expertise
Ohanian (1990) shows that source expertise is referred as the perceived ability of each to

possess either knowledge, skills or experience to answer whether it provides accurate
information or not. In the context of services, prior studies demonstrated that information
provided by an expert source is more persuasive, more authentic and has a greater impact on
receivers’ attitude (Bansal, & Voyer, 2000; Wangenheim, & Bayón, 2004). Receiver tends to
display a high expectation of highly qualified information from the sender with high expertise
(e.g., knowledge and competence), so the receiver has little cause to question the correctness
of review content (McCracken, 1989). Base on the above argument, we propose the second
hypothesis:
Hypothesis 2. The higher source expertise is perceived, the more likelihood that eWOM is
perceived credible.
Source Trustworthiness
Source trustworthiness, on the other hand, refers to the extent to which an individual's
statement is believed as authentic (Pornpitakpan, 2004). The information shown in a
trustworthy source is considered to be more influential, more credible and less doubtful than
information of an origin considered less trustworthy (Huang and Chen, 2006). In sum, we
predict Millennials will perceive positive eWOM as credible if the review is perceived to come
from a high expertise sender and high trustworthy source. Thus, hypothesis 3 is proposed:
Hypothesis 3. The higher source trustworthy is perceived, the more likelihood that eWOM is
perceived credible.
Homophily

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According to Miller and Hoppe (1973), homophily is supposed to affect source credibility
significantly. With reference to Rogers (1983), homophily is defined as the similarities degree among
individuals in term of certain traits. It is further stated that individuals’ similarity could lead to a
greater level of interpersonal attraction, trust, understanding, interaction and sharing mutual
concern compared to dissimilarity (Laumann, 1966). If a source closely resembles the sender, the
source appears more attractive to him (McGuire, 1985). Previously, demographic characteristics

(e.g., gender, age, and race) have drawn much attention of researchers (Saiki, & Delong, 2006;
Turban, Doughrety, & Lee, 2002) while similarities regarding attitudes, core values and personality
were paid no heed. However, in the context of eWOM, it is more arduous to measure source
credibility by demographic attributes due to the nature of reviewer anonymity (Cheng, & Zhou,
2010). Thus we adopted the highlight of the study of Brown, Broderick, and Lee (2007) to measure
source credibility by shared interest and shared mindset. Based on prior studies, we suggest
hypothesis 4:

Hypothesis 4. The higher the perceived homophily among senders and receivers, the higher
eWOM credibility is perceived.
In advance, the mediating effect of source trustworthiness was examined in the path from
homophily to perceived eWOM credibility. As such,
Hypothesis 5. The path from homophily to perceived eWOM credibility through source
trustworthiness is positive and significant.
2.2. E-WOM quality
DeLone and McLean (1992) declared that information quality significantly contributes to the
success of an information system. Besides, Jiménez and Mendoza (2013) stated that product’s
quality in the mind of receivers could be enhanced by enhancing the quality of eWOM, ergo
indirectly enhancing purchase intention. Notably, Awad and Ragowsky (2008) revealed that
consumers care about the correctness and usefulness of online reviews, and eWOM seekers are
more likely to trust a content with good quality. Evidence reveals a positive direct effect of
eWOM quality on perceived eWOM credibility toward credence good (Tsao, & Hsieh, 2015).
Therefore, it can be assumed in this study that high-quality eWOM on OTA sites increase not
only the perceived eWOM credibility but also the possibility that Millennial eWOM receivers
make a reservation. Hence, the next two hypotheses are proposed:
Hypothesis 6. The higher the quality of eWOM, the more likelihood that eWOM is perceived to be
credible. Hypothesis 7. The higher the quality of eWOM, the more likelihood that eWOM receiver
makes a

reservation.

Concerning Tsao and Hsieh (2015), this study solely assumed high quality for all of the
eWOM content to ensure eWOM content’s valence. In advance, for this study, we took into
consideration the mediation through perceived eWOM on the eWOM quality – purchase
intention path. Therefore,
Hypothesis 8. The path from eWOM quality to purchase intention through perceived eWOM
credibility is positive and significant.
3. Methodology
Due to the context of the study, we conducted quantitative research to maximize the
number of data collected to the reliability and validity of research hypotheses and research
model. After collected, the data would be analyzed and interpreted thoroughly.
Sample Profile and Data Collection
Google Forms, a free service for data collection provided by Google, was used to conduct the
self-administered online survey. Considering the purpose of this study is to investigate eWOM
characteristics’


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impact on purchase intentions in a specific group (i.e., OTA users), an online survey is one of
the common methods. Besides, to assure the comprehensibility of the questions, the
questionnaire was pre-tested on 50 respondents. Since there is no concern reported in these
pilot tests, this questionnaire construction was considered to be definitive. The final
questionnaire link was posted on several traveling groups in popular social network sites (e.g.,
Facebook) and several universities in Ho Chi Minh city where Vietnamese Millennials are easy to
reach.
Development of Measures
This research targeted only Vietnamese Millennials who used OTA sites to book a hotel, so
the first section included two questions regarding the year of birth and OTA usage to sort
unqualified respondents out. Potential respondents qualified if they are Millennial consumers

who have made a hotel reservation from any OTA sites at least once. The second section
focused on identifying respondents’ profile, traveling patterns and hotel booking references.
The final section was used to measure respondents’ perception toward seven factors and their
relationships proposed in the literature review above.
The measurement scale of this study adopted items from different prior research and
modified questions to fit the identity of eWOM on OTA sites. We adopted five items from
Ohanian (1990) to measure expertise while using four items recommended by Whitehead
(1968) to best measure source trustworthiness. For homophily, we modified four items from the
work of Shamhuyenhanzva (2016). To measure perceived eWOM credibility, three items
extracted from the study of Cheung et al. (2009) were used. We adopted 5 measurement items
from the study of Park et al. (2007) to measure eWOM quality. Lastly, for purchase intention,
the final dependable construct, we extracted four items from the scale proposed by Dodds,
Monroe and Grewal (1991). All of the indicators were positively expressed on a 5-point Likert
Scale, ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 5 (strongly agree). The questionnaire was designed
in either Vietnamese or English to ensure the understanding of Vietnamese Millennials.
4. Results
Within three months, from February to April 2018, a total of 365 qualified responses out of
451 respondents were collected through online surveys, which accounts for more than 80%,
meets the sample size requirement of Schumacker and Lomax (2010) (i.e., 250-500 subjects).
The rest are considered as invalid either because the respondents reported themselves to have
not used OTA sites before or because they are not Vietnamese Millennials.
As shown in Table 1, 100% respondents are Vietnamese, 83.8% of which are in 18-23 age group,
and the rest age from 24 to 37. Most respondents reported themselves to having bachelor’s degree
(79.5%). Interestingly, the next answers generally help identify a common pattern of traveling and
common online usage. To be more specific, approximately 79% of respondents spent more than 4
hours a day on suffering the Internet for leisure, which indicates that Vietnamese Millennials tend to
highly bond with technology and the Internet. Secondly, Vietnamese Millennials tend to prefer

seeking for information and reviews to posting their experience as 61% of respondents
reported themselves not to leave any reviews on OTA sites. In general, 98%

respondents traveled at least once during last year, 49% of which reported themselves
to travel more than 3 trips. Next, when further assess travel plans within the next 12 months,
only 4% respondents reported having not make up their mind yet while 66% of respondents have already
planned to travel within 3 months.

Hence, these results emphasize the role of Vietnamese

Millennials as the most potential consumers in tourism and hospitality industry.
Lastly, with


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regard to the percentage of favorite OTA usage, it is worth pointing out that
domestic OTA sites

(i.e., Ivivu,vn; Mytour.vn; Vntrip.vn) are far less preferred to global OTA sites.
Reliability test
To test internal consistency reliability of the measurement model,we used cronbach’s alpha
criteria with reference to Anderson and Gerbing (1988). EXP1 and QUAL4 violate the rule of
Field (2005) as their “Cronbach's alpha if item deleted” values are higher than the overall
Cronbach's alpha, thus they were removed from the measurement model [See Table 2]. The
result of reliability test after removing inappropriate items well supported the internal
consistency reliability of measurement model.
Preliminary analyses of empirical data
The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) Measure of Sampling Adequacy and Bartlett's Test of
Sphericity were conducted to assess sampling adequacy and examine whether factor analysis
applies to the measurement. A total of 23 items contributes to the KMO values of 0.891 at a
significant level of 0.000, which exceeds the meritorious threshold of 0.80 (Kaiser, 1974),

therefore appeared to be applicable for further analysis.
Common bias method
As both dependent and independent variables were taken from the same respondent doing
self-administered survey might result in the inflated relationship between variable, also known
as common method bias (Podsakoff, & Organ, 1986; Conway, & Lance, 2010). To detect the
potential of common method bias, we conducted Harman’s single-factor test (Podsakoff, &
Organ, 1986) with an approach of unrotated maximum likelihood analysis extracting all
variables into one factor. The single factor only covers 29.23% of the whole variance, which is
less than 50%. Thus the probability that a substantial common method bias occurs is low.
Measurement model evaluation
At the initial stage, we measured the validity and reliability of measurement model both with
Exploratory Factor Analysis and Confirmatory Factor Analysis approach.
Exploratory Factor Analysis (EFA)
As the measurement items were adopted and modified from prior studies, an EFA approach
of maximum likelihood analysis with eigenvalues greater than 1 through Promax rotation for 20
measured items was conducted. Concerning Fabrigar, Wegener, MacCallum, and Strahan
(1999), maximum likelihood best suits data relatively normally distributed. The result of pattern
matrix categorized 23 items into six distinct components [see Table 3]. None of the factors
loaded under the value of 0.5 meets the requirement of Hair, Anderson, Tatham and Black
(1998). Besides, there is no items having a value of loading value minus crossing value greater
than 0.3. Therefore, it is unnecessary to delete any items. Then, we used the determinant of
the matrix as a criterion to test for multicollinearity. As the determinant value of 23-item matrix
is 0.000021, greater than the threshold of 0.00001 recommended by Field (2005),
multicollinearity is not a problem for these data. Furthermore, the data highly met the
requirement of Anderson and Gerbing (1988) that total variance explained was 57.29%, higher
than recommended of 50%.
Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA)
Next, we conducted CFA by AMOS software version 20 to firstly examine the consistency
within measured constructs using model fit indices and further assess measurement model’s
validity.

Model fit. The results demonstrated that the measurement model fits the data well at
p=0.000: the ratio of chi-square test size and number of degrees of freedom [χ2/d.f.] = 1.42,
root mean square error of


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approximation [RMSEA] = 0.03, standardized root mean square residual [SRMR] = 0.02,
normed fit index [NFI] = 0.92, goodness of fit index [GFI] = 0.93, and comparative fit index
[CFI] = 0.98 (Carmines, & McIver, 1981). The measures of overall fit meet conventional
standards. Hence, the measurement model met the requirement of absolute fit, incremental fit,
and parsimonious fit.
The validity of measurement model. All 23 items loaded significantly into proper constructs
at p < 0.001 and their value of Standardized Regression Weights are all greater than 0.5, which
indicates the convergent validity exists (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988; Hair, Bush, & Ortinau, 2006).
With reference to Fornell and Larcker (1981), the square root of each AVE in each variable
[written in bold in the matrix diagonal of Table 4] is greater in all cases than the other
correlation values among the latent variables [written in off-diagonal elements in their
corresponding row and column]. Therefore, the discriminant validity of the measurement scale
is also verified. Besides, for all constructs, the composite reliability exceeds the threshold value
of 0.7 (Bagozzi and Yi, 1988). Following Bagozzi and Yi (1988), we verified convergent validity
for a reflective measurement model by evaluating the average variance extracted (AVE) of
each latent variable instead of using items’ loadings and cross-loadings. All of the AVE values
[shown in Table 4] are greater than the acceptable threshold of 0.5, so convergent validity is
confirmed.
With reference to Fornell and Larcker (1981), the square root of each AVE in each variable,
written in bold in the matrix diagonal of Table 4, is greater in all cases than the off-diagonal
elements in their corresponding row and column, supporting the discriminant validity. Besides,
Sweeney and Soutar (2001) suggested that the discriminant validity is also assured if correlations

between pairs of variables are significantly below one. As the square root of AVE [shown in Table 4]
is verified for all pairs, so the discriminant validity is also confirmed. Therefore, the validity and
reliability of measurement scale is confirmed.

Structural model evaluation
For this study, Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) was applied in-depth to examine the
hypothesized causal relationship between latent constructs as well as their significance level
(Hair et al., 1998). Before conducting SEM, we first assess the structural model’s overall model
fit indices to estimate the strength of relationships among scale items and latent constructs.
Model fit
The overall result is significant and shows good fit indices: [Chi-square] = 457.582; [χ2/d.f.]
= 1.182 (< 3); [GFI] = 0.906 (>0.9); [TLI] = 0.927 (>0.9); [CFI] = 0.936 (>0.9), and [RMSEA] =
0.024 (<0.08). As a result, the final research model of SEM fit with data.
Hypotheses testing
Next, we used SEM to examine 8 proposed hypotheses. According to the Standardized Regression
Weights statistics [shown in Table 5], p-values of remaining paths namely CRED->PI, TRUST->CRED,
HOM->CRED, QUA->PI are all less than 0.05. Especially, with regard to CRED->PI, TRUST->CRED,
and QUA->PI, all of the p-values are highly significant at a confidence level of 99.9%. Furthermore,
all estimate weights are positive; hence these relationships are proved to be positive by the data.
H1, H3, H4, H7 are therefore supported. The statistics in Table 5 also reveal that regarding the
strength of relationships on CRED, TRUST shows the strongest positive effect (0.556) highly
significant under the confidence level of 99.9%.
In the contrary, p-values of two paths, namely EXP->CRED and QUA->CRED, are greater than
0.05, which indicates the significance under the confidence level of 95%. Consequently, H2, H6 are
not supported by data.

Mediation


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Last but not least, for the initial purpose of this study, we examined each of two indirect
paths proposed above. One of which is from HOM to CRED through TRUST. Another is from QUA
to PI as mediated by CRED. Based on the results in table 6 [see Table 6], the path from HOM to
CRED through TRUST (i.e., parameter AxB) is positive and significant at p < 0.01. Meanwhile,
the indirect effect of QUA on PI as mediated by CRED (i.e., parameter DxE) is positive but not
significant (p = 0.519). As a result, H5 is supported while H8 is disregarded.
To summarize, the results of hypotheses testing and the final research model are shown in
Figure 1.
5. Conclusions
It is noticeable that travel pattern of 365 respondents indicates a potential market toward
hospitality products in Vietnam. That Vietnamese Millennials comprise of approximately 40% of
the total population contributes to the potential of tourism and hospitality industry in the not
too distance future. Most of the respondents traveled a lot during the last year, 1-5 trips most
commonly. The trend of traveling is predicted to continuously raising due to the low fare of
flights and accommodations. Seven-tenths of respondents already made a plan to travel within
3 months. Besides, four fifth of respondents spent more than 4 hours a day to wandering the
Internet for leisure purpose, hence it is more likely to trigger them to travel or seek for
information through OTA sites.
With the main objectives are relationship prediction and explanation of target constructs, we
examine five distinct variables namely expertise, trustworthiness, homophily, perceived eWOM
credibility and purchase intention. The measurement model had a very good fit, and all of
Cronbach’s alpha values are highly good. The results revealed sets of the relationship between
proposed variables related to eWOM that have not been investigated in the context of OTA site
in Vietnam before. To be more specific, the path estimation from perceived eWOM credibility to
purchase intention is positive and significant, which is consistent with our prediction and
findings of Tsao and Hsied (2015), perceived eWOM credibility is a strong antecedent to
purchase intention, in which the impact level is 40.2%. Therefore, it can be concluded that
Vietnamese Millennial online users make a reservation if they consider the positive reviews on

OTA about that hotel is credible; on the contrary, if reviews are regarded as fake or
manipulated by marketers, the final purchase decision is unlikely to be made. Furthermore,
these Vietnamese Millennial respondents share similarities with another target sample of Tsao
and Hsieh’s study (2015).
With regard to factors inducing perceived eWOM credibility, we examined four distinct direct
paths from source trustworthiness, source expertise, homophily and eWOM quality. In

summary, the proposed theoretical framework has confirmed that the path estimation
from homophily and source trustworthiness to perceived eWOM credibility are positive and
significant, once again consistent with the finding of Shamhuyenhanzva et al. (2016).

In specific,

the study revealed among the four antecedents of perceived eWOM credibility; source
trustworthiness shows the strongest effect regarding standardized regression weights estimated, in
which the impact level reached to more than 50%. This finding is supported by either Lis
(2013) or Shamhuyenhanzva et al. (2016), which indicates once the reviewers are perceived to be
right, trustworthy, honest and just, there is more likelihood that receivers will follow the
recommendation.
On the contrary to the work of Lis (2013) and Tsao and Hsieh (2015), we found no significant
effect of source expertise on perceived eWOM credibility as well as eWOM with high quality on
perceived eWOM credibility. According to Lis, the disclosure of user’s identity hinders the generation
of homophily due to the anonymity environment on OTA sites. However, the difference could have
been explained by the assumption that OTA environment creates a strong tie between individuals
sharing same interests or concerns in traveling and booking hotels. Meanwhile, although reviews are
perceived to be accurate, complete, reliable and useful,


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eWOM seekers might question the objective of the reviewer. In other words, eWOM seekers still
question the posting purpose of reviewers.
As a further investigation, we explore two indirect effects, one of which is on perceived
eWOM credibility of homophily. The result shows a significant positive effect. Besides, we found
a positive significant direct effect from homophily to perceived eWOM credibility; thus source
trustworthiness partially mediates the effect of homophily on perceived eWOM credibility. This
finding again matchs with the work of Shamhuyenhanzva et al. (2016). With regard to the
second indirect effect, neither direct effect from eWOM quality on purchase intention nor the
mediation through perceived eWOM credibility was found to be significant. Hence, the
mediation through perceived eWOM credibility on purchase intention of eWOM quality is
unnecessary.
The significance of the study and practical implication
The research findings have contributed to the extension of existing eWOM literature,
particularly in Vietnam industry. The findings provide and support empirical evidence on the
usability of source trustworthiness, homophily on the perception of eWOM credibility and the
significant direct positive impact of perceived eWOM credibility on purchase intention not only
toward credence goods but also toward experienced products in the hospitality sector. Notably,
the peculiarity in the effect of source expertise and eWOM with high quality, with reference to
the finding of Lis (2013) and Tsao and Hsieh (2015), has contributed to the debate of existing
eWOM literature.
With regard to the practical implications, we propose some initial recommendations that
practical marketers may find them useful in enhancing purchase intention and attracting
potential consumers via credible eWOM initiatives. Firstly, marketers of OTA sites must bear in
mind that remaining credibility within any online environment is a must. The results also
suggest the three main factors including OTA’s trustworthiness can homophily can significantly
induce potential consumers’ perception of reviews credibility. Therefore, several
recommendations such as keeping track of either negative or positive hotels’ reviews while
ensuring the feeling of belongingness among eWOM seekers can be adopted. Manipulating fake
reviews with high-quality content under the perception of an expert can enrich the positiveness

of review content but cannot induce perceived eWOM credibility. Instead, marketers had better
act as moderators and enabled potential consumers to leave and exchange their views with
others freely. By designing and executing marketing strategies together with providing good
services, marketers probably can trigger real consumers to leave positive reviews.
Limitations and Future Research
Several limitations should be acknowledged in this study. Firstly, the results might have been
influenced by common method bias. Even though Harman’s single-factor test was conducted to test
for this bias, potential bias from the researchers in developing the questionnaire still exists. Thus, we
applied pretest on 50 respondents to reduce it as much as possible. Secondly, the trend of traveling
via OTA sites is still in the primitive stage and just started to become more popular in Vietnam.
Besides, with the enormous limitation of non-probability sampling is that inferences cannot be drawn
about the larger population based on a non-probability sample. Therefore, the results should be
interpreted as only explaining the majority of Vietnamese Millennials using OTA sites rather than all
Vietnamese Millennial travelers. Thirdly, the Cronbach’s alpha of expertise and homophily
(respectively 0.680, 0.605) is somewhat lower than the suggested value of 0.70. Finally, this study
only examined the effect of positive eWOM with high quality, the relationship among proposed
variables should be assumed with neither reviews with low quality nor negative reviews.
Due to four limitations above, we recommend future researchers to employ a 2x2 factorial design
of eWOM quality (high vs. low) and perceived eWOM credibility (positive vs. negative) to provide
more insights about

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OTA environment. Researchers can also further consider the effect of either fare or OTA’s
booking policies (e.g., deposit and payment method) on purchase intention. Comparing OTA
sites’ experience of the Millennials with other generations’ (e.g., generation Z, generation X)
might also come up with an interesting conclusion.
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Acknowledgement
It is acknowledged that this work is not supported by any funding organizations.

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Tables and Figures
Table 1. Socio-demographic profile of the respondents.
Category

Nationality
Vietnamese
Age
18-23
24-37
Education
High school or
less
Associate
degree
Bachelor's
degree
Master's
degree

N=414

Table 2. The result of Reliability test (before removing inappropriate
items)

Construct

Source

Trustworthiness
(TRUST)

Purchase
Intention
(PI)



Source
Expertise
(EXP)
Perceived
eWOM
Credibility
(CRED)

Homophily
(HOM)

eWOM Quality
(QUAL)

Table 3. Pattern Matrix

TRUST1
TRUST2
TRUST3
TRUST4
PI3

PI2
PI4
PI1
QUAL3
QUAL2
QUAL1
QUAL5
EXP5
EXP2
EXP3
EXP4
HOM4
HOM2


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HOM3
HOM1
CRED1
CRED2
CRED3

CR
0.847
0.853
0.839
0.814
0.802

0.832

AVE
0.582
0.594
0.567
0.522
0.504
0.625

Bold figures in the diagonal are the square roots of AVE’s.

Table 5. Direct effects of the structural model
Hypothesis
H1
H2
H3
H4
H6
H7

Relatio
CRED->
EXP->C
TRUST
HOM->
QUA->
QUA->

***significant at p < 0.001; **significant at p < 0.01; *significant at p < 0.05

Table 6. Indirect effects of the structural model
Parameter

Relationship

A
B
C

HOM->TRUST
TRUST->CRED
HOM->CRED

AxB
D

HOM->TRUST->CR
QUA->CRED

E
F
DxE

CRED->PI
QUA->PI
QUA->CRED->PI

***significant at p < 0.001; **significant at p < 0.01; *significant at p < 0.05

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Note: Dotted line indicates relationship not significant at significance level of 0.05

Figure 1. Revised research model

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