Using panel data from the 17 underdeveloped provinces of China for 2005–2015, the author explored the differential impact of air (environment) quality and government policies on domestic and international visitors. Through econometric model analysis, the authors corroborated that domestic and international visitors react differently to air (environment) quality. In addition, domestic and international tourists have different responses to urbanization and transportation. Marketization is conducive to the development of tourism. Moreover, foreign trade has a positive impact on international tourists. These findings aid local governments to provide additional appropriate tourism development policies.

PurposeMany companies strengthen their interaction with consumers by establishing online communities and bring convenience to value co-creation with consumers. Some companies use economic and social strategies to stimulate consumer value creation. However, the way to increase the effectiveness of such corporate strategies remains unclear. To address this challenge, this study investigates the impact patterns of economic and social strategies that influence consumers' value co-creation behaviour in firm-hosted online communities (FOCs). Moreover, the effective conditions for the value co-creation of the two strategies are explored.Design/methodology/approachData from an FOC were collected for electronic communications products. A total of 1,305 second-hand data records on value co-creation activities were obtained. Then, an econometric model was built and Stata14.0 software was used for data analysis.FindingsThe effect of economic interaction strategy on the value co-creation in online communities is an inverted U-shaped model, and that of social interaction strategy is relatively stable and is not an inverted U-shaped model. Value creation initiatives introduced by enterprise personnel adopt economic strategies to improve effectiveness. On the contrary, value co-creation activities initiated by consumers use social strategies for the same purpose. Economic strategies are effective for large teams, whereas social strategies may lead to a “free rider” mentality.Research limitations/implicationsThis study finds two important factors affecting the value co-creation in FOCs and their effective boundaries. However, other factors may also affect the online community value co-creation. Future research can further explore the intrinsic mechanisms of these strategies for value co-creation.Practical implicationsThis article mainly discusses the influence of stimulation strategies on the value co-creation in an actual company community and exhibits good practical significance for the value co-creation activity and management in online communities. Firstly, corporate strategy is effective in communities, but this strategy requires proper control. Secondly, the company strategy must consider appropriate application conditions.Originality/valueThis study deepens the understanding of the impact of economic and social strategies on the value co-creation in FOCs and the effective boundaries of these impact patterns.

Aim/Purpose: This study examines the kind of community value companies should provide when strengthening the relationship between customers and brands through the establishment of an online brand community, and how this kind of community value promotes customers’ sense of community engagement and willingness to spread brand reputation. The paper also discusses how an enterprise’s brand symbolism affects the relationship between community value and customers’ engagement in online brand community. This study explored the important role of brand symbolism in the establishment of an online brand community. Background: Many companies want to create online brand communities to strengthen their relationships with consumers as well as to provide better service and value to consumers, for example, Huawei’s Huafen community (club.huawei.com), Apple’s support community (support.apple.com/zh-cn), and Samsung’s Galaxy community (samsungmembers.cn). However, these brand communities may have different interests and consumer engagement about the kind of community value to offer to their customers. Methodology: This study uses data collection from questionnaire surveys to design a quantitative research method. An online questionnaire survey of mobile phone users in China was conducted to collect data on social value, cognitive value, brand symbolism, customer community engagement, and brand recommendation. The brands of mobile phone include Apple, Huawei, Samsung, OPPO, VIVO, MI, and Meizu. The researcher purchased a sample service of WJX, an online survey company (www.wjx.cn), and WJX company distributed the questionnaire to research participants. The WJX company randomly selected 240 subjects from their sample database and then sent the questionnaire link to research participants’ mobile phones. Among the 240 research participants, the researcher excluded participants who lacked online brand community experience or had invalid data to qualify for data collection. After the researcher excluded participants who did not qualify for data collection, only 203 qualified questionnaire surveys advanced to the data collection and analysis phase, which was the questionnaire recovery rate of 84.58%. For the model analysis and hypotheses testing, the researcher used statistical software IBM SPSS Statistics and AMOS 21 and Smartpls3. Contribution: This study deepens the body of literature knowledge by combining online brand community value and brand symbolic value to explore issues that companies should consider when establishing an online brand community for their products and services. This study confirms that brands with high symbolic value establish communities and strengthen social values in the online brand community rather than reducing brand symbolism. Online brand community involves a horizontal interaction (peer interaction) among peers, which can have an effect on the symbolic value of brand (social distance). Findings: First, online brand community value (both cognitive and social value) has a positive impact on customer community engagement. Second, customer community engagement has a positive impact on customers’ brand recommend intention. Third, the customer community engagement is a mediator between the online brand community value and the customer brand recommend intention. Most importantly, fourth, the symbolic value of the brand controls the relationship between community value and customer community engagement. For brands with high symbolic value, the community value should emphasize cognitive value rather than social value. For brands with a low symbolic value, the community provides cognitive or social value, which is not affected by the symbolism of the brand. Recommendations for Practitioners: Practitioners can share best practices with the corporate sectors. Brand owners can work with researchers to explore the characteristics of their online brand communities. On this basis, brand owners and researchers can jointly build and manage online brand communities. Recommendation for Researchers: Researchers can explore different perspectives and factors of brand symbolism that involve brand owners when establishing an online brand community to advance consumer engagement, community value, and brand symbolism. Impact on Society: Online brand community is relevant for brand owners to establish brand symbolism, community value, and customer engagement. Readers of this paper can gain an understanding that cognitive and social values are two important drivers of individual participation in online brand communities. The discussion of these two factors can give readers and brand owners the perception to gain more understanding on social and behavior activities in online brand communities. Future Research: Practitioners and researchers could follow-up in the future with a study to provide more understanding and updated research information from different perspectives of research samples and hypotheses on online brand community.

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