This study investigates how message appeal initiates customer engagement when different trip purposes or hotel attributes are presented in a tourism and hospitality context. This study aims to understand how engagement toward a social media post influences behavioral intention toward a hotel as a common tourism product.Over the last two decades, researchers actively explored the concept of customer engagement. This study pioneer different approaches to the body of existing engagement literature in various aspects: 1) experimental research design, 2) multi-dimensions of customer engagement, 3) engagement toward a social media post, and 4) engagement in the initial exposure to the brand through social media. This study investigates how travel purposes and hotel attributes moderate the effect of appeal on engagement. Finally, additional testing of the existence of a positive relationship between engagement and business performance is added.An experimental research design with two independent studies was executed. Study 1 (n=254) adopted a 2 (message appeal: informational vs. emotional) x 2 (trip purpose: business vs. leisure) full factorial between-subjects design. Study 2 (n=265) employed a 2 (message appeal: informational vs. emotional) x 2 (information topic: core vs. supporting) full factorial between-subjects design. Participants were recruited from the Amazon Mechanical Turk online survey system and directed to the online survey platform Qualtrics. ANCOVA analysis was conducted to test message appeal on engagement level. Then multiple regression analysis was executed to test the relationship between levels of engagement and behavioral intention. This study’s findings indicate that when travel purpose was studied as a moderator of message appeal on engagement, informational appeal generates a significantly higher page engagement and post engagement than emotional appeal in the leisure travel group. When the message topic was tested as a moderator of message appeal on engagement, emotional appeal elicits a higher engagement level than informational appeal. This study reveals that engagement's psychological aspect is associated with search intention, word-of-mouth intention, and purchase intention. Regarding behavioral aspects of engagement, post engagement alone is not significantly associated with behavioral intention. In contrast, page engagement is associated with word-of-mouth intention. Finally, practical implications are suggested for industry practitioners to optimize social media content. Moreover, travel industry stakeholders should excogitate that leisure travelers engage more with an informational message than with an emotional message when they have limited information about a hotel.
Read
