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Given the growing importance of online reviews in shaping consumer purchasing decisions, it is increasingly important for restaurant owners to actively manage their online ratings and respond in a timely manner to negative reviews to gain the satisfaction and loyalty of dissatisfied customers. Much work has been conducted globally on this topic. However, there remains a significant gap in our understanding of how the owners respond to negative reviews in Arabic, especially in Saudi Arabia because of the new Saudi Vision 2030. This study aims to support the industry of tourism and hospitality in terms of inviting more tourists to support the economic growth. The goal of the study was to investigate the rhetorical moves and paralinguistic cues with their communicative functions employed by the owners when responding to the online negative reviews on Google reviews. Another goal was to interpret the functions from the perspective of Rapport Management Theory (RMT). The study used both qualitative and quantitative analysis to examine 250 responses to negative reviews posted on restaurants with ratings 4.5 ‘very good’ and 5 ‘excellent,’ out of 5. The results showed that the restaurant owners used 23 rhetorical moves to respond to the negative reviews. However, opening pleasantries/greetings, apologizing, and soliciting response were used more frequently than the other moves. In addition, most of the moves were used to enhance rapport than damaging rapport, alongside with emojis. Moreover, the owners used corporate identity ‘we’ more than personal identify ‘I’ to enhance rapport with the reviewers. That result was not expected because the restaurants are non-chain and the responses are informal. These findings highlight the implications in terms of preparing workshops for the restaurant owners in managing their online responses to the negative reviews of the dissatisfied customers, not only to enhance rapport and achieve the trust and loyalty of reviewers, but also to overhear audience on public. Finally, future studies should include more responses with emojis to explore new types of emojis and their functions.