Who am I if you can’t see me? The “self” of young travellers as driver of eWOM in social media

Abstract

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and Generation Z consumers in three different countries. Design/methodology/approach An online survey was sent to consumers between 16 and 30 years in Sweden, UK and India. Structural equation modelling and multigroup analysis was conducted to compare results between countries and generations. Findings Young travellers’ need for uniqueness (NFU) and opinion leadership (OL) with regard to travel tends to increase their propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip. Reflected appraisal of self is strongly related to NFU and OL and may therefore indirectly influence the propensity to share. Some differences were found between generations and countries. Research limitations/implications Future research could consider comparisons between travellers from younger and older generations. The hypotheses formulated in this study could be tested in other countries. Further adaptions or extensions of existing NFU scales to fit in the travel and tourism context are suggested. Practical implications Millennial and Gen Z consumers will constitute an increasing part of travellers and visitors in the future. Through a better understanding of their behaviour, tourism managers can design strategies to engage them and increase electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM). Originality/value This study contributes by addressing the lack of research on “self”-related drivers of eWOM in general social media during the trip, and by providing an international perspective through cross-cultural comparisons.

Gen Y: Emotions and Functions of Smartphone Use for Tourist Purposes

“…There is a clear need to enhance the tourism use of the smartphones among the youngest group (16)(17)(18)(19), to promote the creation of positive feelings and emotions. The intermediate age group (20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28)(29) uses the tourist functionalities frequently and is characterized by a more neutral emotional behavior. Finally, the oldest age segment (30)(31)(32)(33)(34)(35)(36)(37)(38) requires strategies that combine the virtual and real worlds because, for them, smartphones by themselves do not generate any kind of feeling, which is the main trigger of eWOM.…”

“…In this sense, in times of loneliness and boredom, for example, not being able to interact with other people, mainly through social networks, or to search for information or use entertainment apps, can trigger an acute case of nomophobia [68,70,71,74]. These effects underline the importance that people, particularly the youngest sector of the population, attach to the main values of the web 2.0 model that have given smartphones their protagonist role: multidirectional communication and universal access to information [1,10,24,25,40].…”

“…As Richards [7] points out, Gen Y (as this generation is often referred to) is a market segment of great value to tourist destinations due to the economic potential and availability of its members to travel more frequently and for longer periods. The professional and academic fields have shown great interest in this generation, which is reflected in the recent publication of a remarkable number of research works, both general in scope [2,3,[8][9][10][11][12][13] and specific to the tourism sector [5,[14][15][16][17][18]] The latter sector is particularly interested in this generation's use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for tourism purposes [19][20][21][22][23][24].…”

Motivations of global Millennial travelers

“…Free and fast connectivity was therefore found to be important for Millennials. Ek Styvén & Foster (2018) analysed factors influencing the propensity to share travel experiences in social media during a trip, across a sample of Millennial and generation Z (under 18) consumers in Sweden, UK and India. They found few significant differences between the two generations ort between countries.…”

Does Electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) on Social Media leads to Information Adoption? Empirical Evidence from the Emerging Markets!

“…Lee and Youn (2009) argued that the persistence of investigating eWOM on these platforms remained to determine consumer purchase intentions. Meanwhile, as eWOM on social media was relatively new, therefore less importance was given initially to this platform, with limited number of studies Hussain et al, 2017;Lever, et al, 2017;Ek Styven and Foster, 2018). Recent studies have shown that consumers have been extensively using social media in order to get information about unfamiliar products and services (Ek Styven and Foster, 2018; Fang, 2014; Westerman, et al, 2014).…”