Chapter 5: Fostering Brand Equity Through Online Reputation Management in Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Industry: A CRAAP Test Approach

Online reputation management (ORM) is defined as the process of monitoring and managing negative and positive comments about an organisation on the internet and effectively communicating with social media users. ORM involves engaging with the target audience on online platforms, overseeing online content and creating shareable material. At its core, ORM is about shaping and managing public perceptions online. It is a systematic approach to monitoring and potentially positively influencing the brand equity (BE) across online platforms. Through Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy and Purpose (CRAAP) test, we have analysed the existing literature and derived conclusions. Firstly, the papers were collected from Scopus, and Web of Science Other reputed databases, and then, they were shortlisted based on the CRAAP Test for further analysis. In total, 146 papers were collected, and after applying CRAAP, only 10 were found to be fit for further in-depth analysis. The study concludes that ORM has a significant role in building BE provided it is holistic support of Customer Relationship Management (CRM), effective social media, Big Data Analytics (BDA) and effective feedback with efficient internal operations systems. The study offers important implications for the industry and academia by providing a discussion on future aspects of ORM, such as BDA, Artificial Intelligence and Extended and Virtual Reality (XR and VR).