This study investigates the differential roles of negative and positive reviews on the growth of branded and independent hotels and their underlying interplays. We construct a dataset by combining the revenue data with TripAdvisor review data of hotels in four Texas cities. Based on the resource-based view of firm growth and signaling theory, we obtain several novel findings. Positive reviews exert greater positive effects on the growth of independent hotels than branded hotels, and high growth in turn brings them additional positive reviews. Such a positive feedback loop helps explain why independent hotels benefit more from positive reviews than branded hotels. Negative reviews negatively affect the growth of independent hotels. Although a high growth of branded hotels leads to more negative reviews, the latter does not jeopardize their growth significantly due to the protecting role of brands.

本研究调查了负面和正面评论对品牌和独立酒店的增长及其潜在相互作用的不同作用。我们通过将收入数据与德克萨斯州四个城市酒店的 TripAdvisor 评论数据相结合来构建数据集。基于基于资源的公司增长观点和信号理论，我们获得了几个新的发现。正面评价对独立酒店增长的正面影响大于品牌酒店，而高增长反过来又给独立酒店带来了更多正面评价。这种积极的反馈循环有助于解释为什么独立酒店比品牌酒店更能从正面评价中受益。负面评论对独立酒店的增长产生负面影响。虽然品牌酒店的高增长导致更多负面评论，