Customer engagement with tourism social media brands

In tourism, customer engagement has been found to boost loyalty, trust and brand evaluations. Customer engagement is facilitated by social media, but neither of these phenomena is well-researched in tourism. This research contributes in two ways. First, we validate the Customer Engagement with Tourism Brands (CETB) 25-item scale proposed by So, King & Sparks (2014) in a social media context, and offer an alternative three-factor 11-item version of the scale. Second, we replicate their proposed structural model, and test our alternative model, to predict the behavioural intention of loyalty from engagement, and to test customer involvement as an antecedent to engagement. Ultimately, we propose a customer engagement scale and a nomological framework for customer engagement, both of which can be applied in both tourism and non-tourism contexts. Managers of tourism brands on social to better assess the nature of customer engagement with the parsimonious 11-item scale.     

Physical attractiveness of service employees and customer engagement in tourism industry

As the importance of customer engagement gains more and more recognition, it is critical to study customer engagement strategy in the intensely competitive tourism industry. Answering the call for research on antecedents of tourists' customer engagement in the tourism industry, we consider the role of employees' physical attractiveness. We adopt a mixed-methods approach; using interviews and three scenario-based experiments, we explore, hypothesize, and test the relationship between employees' physical attractiveness and customer engagement of tourists. The results show that (1) physical attractiveness of employees affects tourists' customer engagement, that (2) the main effect of physical attractiveness is mediated by the desire for social interaction, and that (3) the main effect is moderated by tourism service characteristics (i.e., tourism service expertise).     

Engagement-Based Loyalty: The Effects of Social Media Engagement on Customer Loyalty in the Travel Industry

In this article, we investigate the relation between customer loyalty and social media engagement. Two dimensions of customer loyalty are considered: affective and conative loyalty. We distinguish two forms of social media engagement: consuming of social media (passive engagement) and contribution to social media (active engagement). In a survey among 1,050 customers of a travel agency, the level of engagement of customers with the company’s social media activities is measured in relation to their degree of loyalty. Results show a partial positive relationship between social media engagement and customer loyalty: only consuming social media is directly related to affective loyalty.     

The interaction effect of emoji and social media content on consumer engagement: A mixed approach on peer-to-peer accommodation brands

This study examines how the interaction between emoji (emotional vs semantic) and social media content (aesthetic experience vs promotion) influences consumer engagement in tourism brands' digital communication. Based on real Twitter data and an online experiment, our results show that, for aesthetic experience content, emotional emoji elicits more consumer engagement than semantic emoji does. Moreover, emotional emoji increases consumer engagement by eliciting a higher level of emotional responses for aesthetic experience content, whereas semantic emoji enhances consumer engagement by generating greater credibility for promotion content. This study contributes to the textual paralanguage literature in tourism by offering theoretical explanations on how and why the matching effects of emoji and content type on consumer engagement occur in tourism brands’ digital communication. This study also provides practical implications for tourism social media marketers on how to increase consumer engagement via the appropriate use of emoji.     

Real-time co-creation and nowness service: lessons from tourism and hospitality

Brands take advantage of technology, social media and constant connectivity to foster organic consumer engagement and interactions towards co-creating personalised customer service. Real-time service offers dynamic engagement with connected consumers. Brands in tourism and hospitality use technology to dynamically enhance consumer experience through co-creation. The integration of real-time consumer intelligence, dynamic big data mining, artificial intelligence, and contextualisation can transform service co-creation by mobilising recourses in the ecosystem. Nowness service emerges by dynamically engaging consumers in experience cocreation in real time. It has five interconnected characteristics that revolutionise the tourism and hospitality, namely: real-time, co-creation, data-driven, consumer-centric and experience co-creation.     

Driving employees to serve customers beyond their roles in the Vietnamese hospitality industry: The roles of paternalistic leadership and discretionary HR practices

Our research primarily seeks to assess how paternalistic leadership behaviors – authoritarianism, benevolence, and morality – influence extra-role customer service via employee work engagement as a mediator. The data for our research model were gleaned from four- or five-star hotels in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. To test the hypotheses of the research model, structural equation modelling was employed. Our research findings cast light on the mediation mechanism of employee work engagement for the positive relationships between benevolence and morality components of paternalistic leadership and extra-role customer service behavior, as well as for the negative relationship between authoritarian behavior and extra-role customer service behavior. Additionally, benevolent and moral behaviors were found to attenuate this negative association between authoritarian behavior and extra-role customer service. Discretionary HR practices were proved to play the moderating role for the relationships between the three paternalistic leadership behaviors and employee work engagement in that discretionary HR practices fortified the positive link between benevolent or moral behavior and work engagement and alleviated the negative link between authoritarian behavior and work engagement.     

The impact of Halal tourism,customer engagement on satisfaction: moderating effect of religiosity

The research aimed at finding out the relationship between Halal tourism, religiosity, customer engagement, and tourist’s satisfaction. The population of the study were Muslim tourists who visited West Sumatra, Indonesia. The data were 450 respondents, but only 393 were useable responses. It is found that Halal tourism and customer engagement have significant impacts on the tourist’s satisfaction. Religiosity is a significant moderating variable on this relationship. Thus, this study gives some contribution to tourism sector especially on Halal tourism, religiosity, and customer satisfaction.     

State-of-the-art social customer relationship management

The rise of social media challenges the traditional notion of customer relationship management (CRM) and has led to the emergence of social CRM. This study collected and content-analyzed recent literature along the intersection between social media and CRM, to present an overview of the social CRM research in tourism and hospitality. Findings indicate that most studies focus on the context of hotel and restaurant. These studies lack a solid theoretical underpinning and tend to adopt qualitative research methods. Five research themes are identified from supply-focused research, while two themes are observed from demand-focused research. Overall, uneven attention has been paid by researchers in the field, with more emphasis on supply than on demand sides. According to the findings of the literature review, a conceptual framework and a research agenda are presented. Theoretical and practical implications to the tourism and hospitality industry are also discussed.     

Theoretical activity in sustainable tourism research

There is growing recognition in tourism and sustainable tourism research of the need for a fuller engagement in theoretical activity. The paper examines how different research strategies in recent articles on sustainable tourism have advanced theoretical understanding in this research field. The articles advance thinking through ideas and concepts connected with political ecology, mobilities, transition pathways, and behavioural and systems change. They are evaluated using a typology of research strategies associated with theoretical work, using a broad perspective on this work. The research strategy typology was developed for the paper, and it is explained and illustrated. While the papers on sustainable tourism use a range of strategies associated with theoretical activity, there is only limited engagement with “big” social theories.     

Service encounter value and online engagement behaviors

This study investigates the relationships between service encounter values and online customer engagement behaviors in the context of hospitality and tourism services. Given that interactions are contextual in nature, this study examines the service encounter values across four major service sectors, i.e., hotels, restaurants, theme parks, and airlines through 1710 responses from actual service consumers. Multiple structural equation modeling techniques are conducted to test the hypotheses. Various values (i.e., emotional value, social value, functional value, and epistemic value) are identified in different sectors of service encounters that pose significant influences on online customer engagement behaviors such as online rating, online reviewing, online blogging, and online customer-to-customer interactions. Practical and theoretical implications are provided, as well as future research directions.     

Evaluating user-generated content in social media: an effective approach to encourage greater pro-environmental behavior in tourism?

Appealing to tourists’ intrinsic interest for high-quality tourism environments, and thus encouraging them to act with a greater sense of personal responsibility toward the environment, could be critical to promoting sustainable tourism. Proliferating media channels makes the choice, style and delivery of pro-environmental messages a key issue for tourism marketers and management. Social media has become a recognized important channel for tourism information, with user-generated content (UGC) being more trusted than official channels, yet there is little knowledge about its potential role in activating pro-environmental norms. This study investigates that issue. Focusing on the conjoining aspects of personal and social norms for the first time, we propose a hypothetical model to explain the direct and indirect effects of pro-environmental UGC in activating tourists’ pro-environmental behavioral intentions. Working in a Chinese context, where social media plays an increasing role, the research, using a web-based sample (N = 1043), UGC-linked pro-environmental knowledge and awareness, was found to have a strong role in activating pro-environmental norms, creating a pro-environment online community, and increasing tourists’ level of engagement in pro-environmental social media activity. The study highlights the effectiveness of social media channels with UGC providing persuasive communications able to impact sustainable behaviors.     

The influence of social media in creating expectations. An empirical study for a tourist destination

Social media are transforming the tourism industry from its traditional pattern into an intense informational pattern. Our study aims to investigate the causes underlying the use of user-generated contents (UGC) to receive tourist information and its effect on tourists’ expectations. Our empirical work was analysed by means of a multiple indicators multiple causes model (MIMIC) and a structural equation model (SEM). The main finding showed that when users receive UGC related to tourist destinations, they will create expectations about the destination by placing their trust in the contents received. It is recommended that tourism organizations should maintain the quality level in order to allow more UGC, and then further trust in the contents of social media and expectations will occur.     

Antecedents and consequences of hotel customers’ psychological ownership

This study aims to broaden the current knowledge on the antecedents and consequences of customers’ psychological ownership (CPO) from new perspectives in the hotel context. Specifically, this study investigates how self-image congruity and functional congruity affect CPO through impression in memory based on self-congruity theory and also examines two types of customer engagement—customers’ social influence engagement and knowledge-sharing engagement—as new CPO outcomes. Using survey data collected from 433 Chinese hotel customers, this study finds that self-image congruity positively predicts CPO partially through impression in memory, whereas functional congruity positively influences CPO fully through impression in memory. Moreover, the findings indicate that CPO significantly drives customers’ social influence engagement and knowledge-sharing engagement. This study contributes theoretically to the CPO literature by further developing its linkages with congruity perceptions and customer engagement. Practical implications of the findings can help hotel managers effectively promote CPO and customer engagement.     

Enhancing customers’ brand loyalty via branded hotel apps

Many hotels have launched their own branded mobile applications to develop relationships with customers. Yet, research examining the benefits of branded hotel apps on brand loyalty is scant. The current research investigates the role of branded hotel apps on brand loyalty through customer engagement and brand trust in the hotel industry, based on uses and gratifications theory. Results identified cognitive and social benefits of the branded hotel apps positively influenced customer engagement and brand trust. Hedonic benefits positively influenced customer engagement and they indirectly influenced brand trust through customer engagement. Both customer engagement and brand trust positively influenced brand loyalty. Moreover, mediation effects of customer engagement and brand trust were identified. Results highlight how branded hotel apps serve as a facilitator of brand loyalty, providing theoretical and managerial implications.     

Factors influencing customer engagement with branded content in the social network sites of integrated resorts

The integrated resorts rely on social network sites (SNSs) for content marketing, while one of the main purposes of content marketing is customer engagement that will leverage the impact of branded content. This study investigates the factors influencing customer engagement with brand posts of integrated resorts on the SNSs. The findings highlight the important influence of both media-type and content-type factors on the level of customer engagement in SNSs of integrated resorts. This study provides practical implications for integrated resorts to develop SNS online content marketing strategy.     

Integrating virtual reality devices into the body: effects of technological embodiment on customer engagement and behavioral intentions toward the destination

ABSTRACT

Virtual reality devices create a high integration of technologies with human senses. However, few studies analyze how embodied technologies affect customer pre-experiences with a destination. Results from a lab experiment show that compared to desktop PC and mobile phones, VR head-mounted displays generate more immersive experiences, higher sensory stimulation, more engagement, and higher behavioral intentions toward the destination. Immersion and sensory stimulation mediate the effects of technological embodiment on engagement and behavioral intentions. Furthermore, active (versus passive) tourism content strengthens these effects. Our results stress the role of technological embodiment to generate effective pre-experiences with potential tourists’ destinations.     

Value co-creation and customer citizenship behavior

Drawing on social exchange theory and the service-dominant logic framework this paper explores the association between value co-creation and the willingness to engage in customer citizenship behavior in the hospitality and tourism context. Tourism and hospitality firms are increasingly offering opportunities for co-production and value-in-use not only to increase revisit and repurchase intentions but also to benefit from manifestations of customer citizenship behavior such as customer feedback, advocacy, customer-to-customer assistance and tolerance in less satisfactory future services. The paper offers a building block for future work to investigate the causal relationship between the dimensions of value co-creation (co-production and value-in-use) and customer citizenship behavior.     

High-performance work practices and hotel employee performance: The mediation of work engagement

This study proposes and tests a research model that investigates whether work engagement functions as a mediator of the effects of high-performance work practices (HPWPs) on job performance and extra-role customer service. These relationships were assessed through LISREL 8.30 using structural equation modeling (SEM). Data were obtained from full-time frontline hotel employees and their managers in the Poiana Brasov region in Romania. The results suggest that work engagement acts as a full mediator of the effects of HPWPs on job performance and extra-role customer service. Specifically, HPWPs, as manifested by frontline employees’ appraisal of training, empowerment, and rewards, enhance work engagement. Such HPWPs in turn trigger job performance and extra-role customer service. Implications of the results are discussed and avenues for future research are offered.     

All hype or the real deal? Investigating user engagement with virtual influencers in tourism

Virtual influencer (VI) marketing has become increasingly prevalent on social media with the evolving landscape of digitalisation. However, the use of VIs in tourism has received limited attention in the literature. This study examines salient source and content attributes that stimulate Instagram users’ engagement with VIs in a tourism context. An online discrete choice experiment was designed using key attributes (i.e. source realness, image composition and caption discourse) identified from online focus groups. Survey responses from 309 adult Instagram users in Australia were analysed through discrete choice modelling. The findings indicate that humanlike VIs are preferred over 3D animated VIs and the least preferred influencers are 2D animated VIs. Instagram posts from humanlike VIs that combine images of tourism settings with rational messages attract the most engagement from the audience. Theoretical and practical implications are provided with recommendations for how tourism practitioners can harness VI marketing effectively.     

Linking AI quality performance and customer engagement: The moderating effect of AI preference

Drawing upon affordance theory, this study positions artificial intelligence (AI) as a commercial service in examining its influence on customer engagement in the hotel context. In particular, we seek to understand linkages between customer perceptions of AI service quality, AI customer satisfaction and engagement. Given the multiplicity of services offered by service organisations, customers’ preference for AI service is modelled as a moderator of customer perceptions and attitudes towards AI. Data was collected from a sample of hotel customers in Australia who had previously used AI tools or services. Our results reveal a significant chain effect between AI service indicators, service quality perceptions, AI satisfaction and customer engagement. AI preference has a significant moderation effect on information quality and satisfaction. These findings provide new insights into the consumer services literature and have important implications for marketing practitioners.