The potential for eWOM to affect consumer behaviour in tourism

Word of mouth (WOM) is a socially constructed communication phenomenon (Harris and Prideaux 2011) where information is directly exchanged between two or more people either face-to-face or online (Sotiriadis and van Zyl 2013). The capacity of WOM to both inform and influence has been of interest to academics and industry for a considerable time. This interest has grown exponentially as the volume of WOM has skyrocketed via electronic channels, known as eWOM.