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Article published In:
Pragmatics and Society
Vol. 10:4 (2019) ► pp.493–511

Hotel management’s attempts at repairing customers’ trust

The use of apology and denial

| The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

The present study explores the discursive practice of the hospitality industry in addressing competence-based, benevolence-based, and integrity-based accusations of trust violation made by dissatisfied customers on TripAdvisor. Authentic negative online reviews written by dissatisfied customers and the corresponding responses by hotel management downloaded directly from TripAdvisor are analyzed qualitatively with Nvivo10. Results show that hotel management has the strongest preference for apology, followed by implicit denial and then explicit denial when dealing with the three different types of accusations of trust violation. The findings will enhance our understanding of trust and its repair, and benefit hospitality practitioners responsible for handling online criticisms and complaints.

Keywords: apology, denial, hotel accommodation, TripAdvisor, trust violation, trust repair
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Apology and denial
  • 3.Hotel management’s attempts at trust repair
  • 4.Method
  • 5.Findings
    • 5.1Addressing trust violation accusations with apology and denial
    • 5.2Addressing trust violation accusations with other moves
  • 6.Discussion
    • 6.1Use of apology, implicit denial and explicit denial
    • 6.2Use of other moves
  • 7.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 14 January 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ps.18008.ho
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2021. Denial in managerial responses: Forms, targets and discourse environment. Journal of Pragmatics 176 ► pp. 124 ff. DOI logo
Hopkinson, Christopher
2021. Realizations of oppositional speech acts in English: a contrastive analysis of discourse in L1 and L2 settings. Intercultural Pragmatics 18:2 ► pp. 163 ff. DOI logo

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