Vicious advice: Analyzing the impact of TripAdvisor on the quality of restaurants as part of the cultural heritage of Venice

Abstract

Venice is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. In Venice, as in other middle-sized heritage European cities, strong tourism pressure is trapping the city in a vicious circle that is eroding the quality of its tourism attractions. This development is related to the growing numbers of excursionists who lack the time to make informed decision about the quality of goods. Consequently, suppliers reduce the quality of their offerings and instead focus on their market share. Consumer-generated media (CGM), such as TripAdvisor, may help resist this development by providing excursionists with aggregated, up to date information on the quality of tourism offerings as perceived by customers. In this paper, we investigate the efficiency of TripAdvisor in helping tourists to make informed decisions and in increasing the popularity of restaurants. Our findings suggest that, although TripAdvisor's algorithm is designed to reward quality, it does not adequately meet these goals.