Good intent, bad result: When encouraging leaving reviews weakens potential consumers’ booking intention

Hotel marketing literature holds that content-rich online reviews boost booking intentions, with managers using various strategies to encourage positive reviews. This paper identifies an overlooked negative effect: when consumers view photos of guestrooms occupied by others, they may develop a psychological perception that the room is contaminated, which is defined as “virtual contamination.” Five preregistered experiments verified this: Prestudy verified the existence of virtual contamination; Study 1 showed lower booking intentions for occupied (vs. unoccupied) review photos; Study 2 verified the serial mediation effect: consumers perceive that occupied review photos indicate a higher level of virtual contamination, thus resulting in lower confidence in cleaning. Studies 3 and 4 further confirmed the moderating effects of photo space type and hotel replies. These findings contribute to the literature on hotel marketing and online reviews, offer actionable recommendations for managers to mitigate this negative effect, and discuss managerial and social implications.