ABSTRACT
This chapter provides an overview of the theoretical background of electronic word of mouth on consumers’ behavior in general and lay the focus on the gastronomy industry by introducing the main research in the area with a special focus on gastronomy blogs, as emerging and popular tools. The web-based opinion platforms hold valuable sources for making a consumer decision on an intangible, and more and more with experience-focused products like gastronomy, according to several authors. According to Z. Zhang et al., web-based reviews play a key role in consumers’ decision-making process, particularly in the step of collecting information on websites. Decision making is a process of making a choice from a number of alternatives to achieve a desired result. Consumer behavior contains decisions, experiences, activities, and ideas that gratify consumers’ needs. Hospitality and tourism companies started to apply popular bloggers and vloggers to attract the consumers to their places.
