Communicating destination social responsibility through social media: the roles of tourists´ social engagement, citizenship behaviors, and emotions

Abstract

Social media is a particularly useful tool to promote sustainable tourism destinations. However, little is known about consumer engagement with social media communication in a destination social responsibility (DSR) context within the tourism industry. Grounded in the Stimulus-Organism-Response model, this study examines the factors that influence the intention to generate electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on DSR issues through a specific social networking site. This research includes tourists` social engagement, citizenship behaviors, perceived DSR, emotional responses to perceived DSR, and emotions toward a post as explanatory variables to investigate a specific behavioral intention as the outcome. The authors designed a study based on an online survey of Spanish Facebook users. Empirical testing confirmed most of the hypothesized effects except the influence of tourists´ helping behaviors on the intention to share the post.