From eWOM to Synthetic WOM: A Systematic Review and Integrative Framework for AI-Mediated Persuasion in Tourism and Hospitality

Artificial intelligence (AI) now participates in analysing, selecting, reformulating and producing online review communication. Tourism and hospitality research examines these uses through overlapping concepts, leaving uncertainty about their relationship to human experience and electronic word of mouth (eWOM). This review combines bibliometric mapping of 142 publications in English indexed in Scopus at the search date, thematic coding of 54 papers and close comparison of an analytical core of 20 sources. The bibliometric results locate generative systems within research on eWOM, review analytics, service technologies and recommendations. The focused synthesis identifies five distinct roles for AI in review communication. These roles differ in experiential provenance and control over message formulation and presentation. The framework locates them within synthetic word of mouth (Synthetic WOM) and proposes a pathway linking provenance cues, consumer appraisal and outcomes. It also identifies practical priorities for platforms and tourism firms: clear disclosure of AI involvement, source identification and access to supporting reviews. Reviewed studies support individual relationships within this pathway; the complete sequence remains for empirical testing. Platform studies also report changes in subsequent review contribution. The framework uses these findings to propose a longer-term feedback connection to the review corpus.