Online Customer Reviews on Restaurants and Expert Opinions: An Integrated Approach

Abstract

In recent years, online customer reviews have been widespread and it has been taken into account in the point of the decision by the people. Resources which create a virtual environment interaction are developing with the user reviews and ratings and it is increasingly gaining importance for both customers and tourism businesses. Customers, who are evaluating food and beverage consumption as an experience and looking at truelife experiences when deciding which experience to lives, are more increasingly using online resources serving sector. These platforms provide the customers the opportunity of dialoguing among them and provide information while they provide feedback for the improvements for the service providers they need to do. Because of these properties, researchers argue online customer reviews and they express that services restaurant could offer and the quality of them could be compared better by using customer feedback. However, customer review system has been criticized. The point critics pointed is the difficulty of verification reviews and deficiencies in impartiality point. An integrated approach is proposed in this study. Online customer judgments assessing the food and beverage business and expert opinions underlie the integrated approach. For this purpose, the data obtained from TripAdvisor website and expert reviews will be integrated with Analytical Hierarch Process (AHP) method. In the study, restaurants which take place in Turkey’s biggest tourist areas in four provinces and locating in the top 10 according to customer rewievs on TripAdvisor website are evaluated. Then, arithmetical average of the aggregated customer ratings relating to these restaurants and the integration of assessment of experts providing training in food and beverage area are ensured. Consequently, these four provinces’ rank is determined by an integrated approach in terms of restaurants.