Abstract

This research aimed to investigate the impact of electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) in measuring the service quality of the recreational vehicle tourism industry in New Zealand. SERVQUAL model was employed to measure the service quality among RV rental service providers (Maui and Mighty) in New Zealand. Data was collected from the websites of Maui and Mighty which belong to Tourism Holdings Ltd (thl). A quantitative research approach was adopted to analyze the demographic features of the customers. The study analyzed 461 online customer reviews using qualitative method to measure RV tourism service quality in New Zealand. Findings showed that reviews were more about the tangible factors of the services and were most frequently coded and represented 60.4 percent of the total. Nearly 70 percent of reviews were positive about the services of RV tourism industry. This study revealed that eWOM could conclusively indicate the service quality from direct customer feedback. eWOM would benefit customers, business managers, and tourism industry. This study was conducted in February 2020 just before the COVID-19 pandemic so this gave us an opportunity to analyze the customers’ reviews during lockdown period. Further research is necessary to ascertain the impact of eWOM on recreational vehicle tourism industry after COVID-19.