Abstract:
Online reviews have become one of the most influential sources shaping tourists’
destination expectations and travel decisions. However, a gap often exists between
the expectations created by the reviews and the actual experiences, which mainly
impacts tourist satisfaction levels and future travel behaviour. There are limited
studies which have investigated the expectation-reality gap in the Sri Lankan context.
Therefore, it is aimed to analyse how online reviews impact tourist expectations,
assess the alignment of actual experiences with expectations, and evaluate the
influence on overall tourist satisfaction through this study. For data collection, a
mixed-method approach was used for a comprehensive understanding of this study,
and data were collected through a structured survey with 100 tourists, with qualitative
content analysis of online reviews taken from major online platforms. The study
focused on four key destinations—Sigiriya, Ella, Galle, and Colombo—representing
diverse tourism experiences such as cultural, coastal, and eco-tourism. Findings of
the study imply that, while most of the tourists rely on online reviews for planning,
distinctiveness between expectations emerging from online reviews and real-life
experiences is common, especially in factors like accommodation quality,
transportation credibility and availability of public services. The results of the study
reveal a strong correlation between the gap between expectation and reality and
tourist satisfaction levels, with tourists whose real experiences mostly aligned with
expectations showing significantly higher satisfaction and a greater likelihood of
revisiting or recommending the destination, as indicated by online reviews. The study
offers great implications for Sri Lankan tourism stakeholders to improve service
quality and digital communication strategies and ultimately enhance tourist
satisfaction and destination competitiveness.
