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Travel Social Media Involvement:
A Proposed Measure
Suzanne Amaro and Paulo Duarte
Abstract This study proposes a measure to determine traveller’s level of involve-
ment with travel social media websites. Social media involvement is defined as a
person’s level of interest, emotional attachment or arousal with social media. This
measure is important because understanding travellers’level of involvement with
social media is paramount, enabling social media marketers to personalize online
marketing strategies and predict behaviours (e.g. online travel purchases). There-
fore, this research contributes to the development of literature on travel related
social media by providing an instrument to measure travellers’involvement with
travel related social media. A confirmatory factor analysis conducted with a sample
of 1,732 respondents demonstrates that social media involvement can be concep-
tualized as a formative multidimensional construct, formed by interest in social
media, social media consumption, social media creation and perceived playfulness
with the use of social media (all for travel related purposes).
Keywords Involvement • Social media • Travel • User generated content
1 Introduction
The Internet has drastically changed the way travellers search for information
(Arsal et al. 2008) and is an increasingly popular means to search for travel
information (Xiang and Gretzel 2010). With the rapidly developing of the Web
2.0, social media Websites have gained popularity not only in online travellers’
search for information (Xiang and Gretzel 2010) but also to post information
regarding their trips, through comments, photos or pictures (Parra-L
opez
S. Amaro (*)
Higher School of Technology and Management of Viseu, Polytechnic Institute of Viseu, Viseu,
Portugal
e-mail: samaro@estgv.ipv.pt
P. Duarte
Business and Economics Department, Beira Interior University, Covilha
˜, Portugal
e-mail: pduarte@ubi.pt
©Springer International Publishing Switzerland 2015
I. Tussyadiah, A. Inversini (eds.), Information and Communication Technologies in
Tourism 2015, DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-14343-9_16
213
et al. 2012). Different statistics evidence the importance of social media in the
travel context. Approximately one-fifth of leisure travellers worldwide use social
media for travel planning (eMarketer 2013). A study conducted by PhocusWright,
one of the leading travel industry research firms, found that 80 % of the respondents
read at least six reviews before booking an accommodation (Tnooz 2014). A
different study demonstrated that reviews were more important than price when
choosing a hotel (Noone and McGuire 2013). The same study found that negative
reviews would eliminate a hotel from consideration, regardless of price.
Although there are many studies focusing on traveller’s use of social media and
its effect on travel planning and travel decisions, research on travellers level of
involvement with social media websites is scarce. However, it is important to study
traveller’s involvement with social media involvement as travellers who are more
involved with social media have different characteristics and behaviours. While
some travellers seem to have an active behaviour on these social media websites,
with high levels of involvement, others are not as active. According to Forrester
Research, 75 % of Internet users use social media, but less than half actively
participate (Osborn 2009). Gretzel et al. (2007) found important differences
between members of Tripadvisor concerning their social media use. For example,
those that read travel reviews more frequently than others travel frequently for
pleasure and have higher incomes, representing an attractive market for travel
marketers. Moreover, travellers that read online reviews more frequently are
more likely to be highly influenced by other travellers’reviews (Gretzel
et al. 2007). Gretzel et al. (2007) found that, in contrast to those who do not actively
write travel reviews, travel review writers are more involved in trip planning than
non-writers. They also found that travel review writers are also more likely to see
other travellers’reviews as superior to travel provider information and are more
influenced by reviews. A Forrester Research report also advises online travel
marketers to pay attention to a group of online leisure travellers termed conversa-
tionalists, who participate in social media conversation since they have the potential
to drive sales (Harteveldt et al. 2010). In conclusion, online travel marketers need to
pay attention to travellers more involved with social media, since they are more
likely to influence other with their reviews, are also more influenced by reviews
wrote by others, are more likely to have higher incomes and are more involved in
trip planning.
This study proposes a measure to examine travellers’level of involvement with
travel social media websites. In the era of social media, understanding travellers’
level of involvement with social media is paramount, enabling social media mar-
keters to personalize online marketing strategies and predict behaviours (e.g. online
travel purchases). Moreover, travellers with higher levels of involvement represent
an attractive segment for travel marketers.
The remainder of the article is organized as follows. The next section reviews
existing literature on use of social media in the travel context and involvement, to
provide the basis for the proposed measures. Then, measures are proposed and
tested for travel social media involvement. Finally, the last section discusses the
usefulness of the travel social media involvement construct and points out future
research directions.
214 S. Amaro and P. Duarte
2 Literature Review
2.1 Use of Social Media for Travel
Travel Social Media websites have facilitated traveller’s access to travel informa-
tion and are therefore a powerful source for travel planning. The most important
factor influencing travellers to participate in online travel communities is informa-
tion acquisition (Chung and Buhalis 2008a). According to Gretzel and Yoo (2008)
travel review readers consider information posted by other travellers to be superior
to marketer information. Moreover, their results illustrated that travel reviews
played an important role in the trip planning process, by providing ideas, reducing
risk and making it easier to imagine what places would be like.
Several studies have confirmed the important role social media have on influenc-
ing travel decisions. Indeed, exposure to an online hotel review improves the
probability for consumers to consider booking a room in the reviewed hotel
(Vermeulen and Seegers 2009). This conclusion is echoed in a more recent study
conducted by Sparks and Browning (2011) which reinforces the persuasive impact
that positive reviews have on intentions to book. In a different study, 84 % of travel
review users reported that the reviews had a significant influence on their purchase
decisions. (ComScore 2007).
While some individuals actively participate in travel related social media, by
posting comments, photos and videos, others do not demonstrate such an active
role. Shao (2009) suggests that individuals deal with user generated media in three
ways: by consuming, by participating, and by producing. Consuming refers to the
individuals who only read, or view but never participate. Participating includes both
user-to-user interaction and user-to-content interaction (such as ranking the content,
adding to playlists, sharing with others, posting comments, etc.). Producing encom-
passes creation and publication of one’s personal contents such as text, images,
audio, and video. Studies show that most individuals are consumers or participators
(Yoo and Gretzel 2011) referred to as lurkers (Ridings et al. 2006). Producers
initiate the life cycle of user generated media, with the purpose of attracting others’
attention (Shao 2009) and, viewed from a social exchange theory perspective, do so
in the expectation of receiving benefits through recognition, through influencing the
nature of the community, and through knowing they helped another person (Ridings
et al. 2006). Ridings et al. (2006) found that producers reported stronger desires to
give and to get information, to exchange social support and to obtain shopping
information than lurkers and infrequent posters.
Individuals engage in a particular behaviour if it provides them enjoyment and
fun. Shao (2009) argues that people may use user generated media just like
traditional media for entertainment purposes such as escaping from problems,
relaxing, filling time and seeking emotional release. In the travel context, studies
have shown that reading travel reviews added fun to the trip planning process, made
travel planning more enjoyable and made travellers feel more excited about trav-
elling (Gretzel and Yoo 2008; Gretzel et al. 2007). Chung and Buhalis (2008b)
Travel Social Media Involvement: A Proposed Measure 215
found that users of online travel communities (e.g. Tripadvisor.com, VirtualTourist.
com) participated in the online community activities not only for the informational
benefits, but also for the hedonic benefits (i.e. “Having fun with contents”, “Enter-
tainment” and “To be amused by members”). Similarly, Wang and Fesenmaier
(2004) found that hedonic need were an important predictor for the level of
participation in an online travel community. Enjoyment also is driver of travel
content generated media creation (Yoo and Gretzel 2011). This empirical evidence
demonstrates that individuals use travel social media websites not only for infor-
mation purposes but also because they consider its use enjoyable. Web 2.0 has
made information search more personalized, active and interactive, which contrib-
utes to its hedonic value (Gretzel 2012).
2.2 Social Media Involvement
Grounded on Rothchild’s(1984) definition of involvement, the current study
defines social media involvement as a person’s level of interest, emotional attach-
ment or arousal with social media. The adaption of this definition to explore
travellers’involvement with social media seems appropriate to extend the knowl-
edge of social media use for travel purposes.
Researchers have argued that involvement can be conceived in behavioural
terms. For instance, Stone (1984) defined involvement as the time and/or intensity
of effort expended in pursuing a particular activity. Engel et al. (1995) also
suggested that involvement could be measured by the time spent in product search,
the energy spent and the extent of the decision process. However, other measures of
involvement have included mental states, such as enjoyment/pleasure (Laurent and
Kapferer 1985) and importance/interest (Laurent and Kapferer 1985; Mittal 1989;
Zaichkowsky 1985).
This study takes Stone’s(1984) view that involvement is both a mental state and
a behavioural process. With this in mind and based on the literature review
conducted in the previous section, social media involvement is conceptualized as
a multidimensional construct based on individual’s usage of social media (con-
sumption and creation), their level of interest in social media and perceived
playfulness with the use of social media, as shown in Table 1.
From a behavioural perspective, an individual that is highly involved with social
media will be more engaged with travel related social media. Indicators of such
behaviour will be their social media consumption and creation behaviour. On the
other hand, individuals engage in a particular behaviour if it provides them enjoy-
ment and fun. It is also expected that individuals using travel related social media
and experiencing enjoyment are more absorbed and interested in interacting. In
sum, individuals with a high social media involvement have a high interest in travel
related social media, are highly active on social media, by searching and posting
travel related information and enjoy using social media for travel purposes.
216 S. Amaro and P. Duarte
3 Methodology
3.1 Measure Development
As described in the previous section, social media involvement was conceptualized
as composed by four dimensions: social media consumption, creation of social
media content, perceived playfulness and level of interest. Based on this concep-
tualization and the literature review carried out, 20 indicators capturing the various
facets of social media involvement were generated. Some of the items considered
were developed for the purposes of this study, while others were based on previous
studies, modified to make them relevant to the social media usage context. The
items used and their sources are shown in Table 2.
For social media consumption and creation, respondents indicated their level of
consumption and creation of social media content with the survey items using a
five-point Likert-type scale with responses ranging from 1—“Never” to 5—
“Always”. Perceived playfulness was measured with a five point Likert scale
where 1—“Strongly Disagree” and 5—“Strongly Agree”. Interest in social media
was measured with a five point differential semantic scale.
Social Media Involvement was conceptualized as a formative multidimensional
construct composed of four dimensions. Each dimension of social media involve-
ment is a component of the social media involvement construct, which would
become incomplete if any of the dimensions were missing.
3.2 Data Collection
To assess the proposed measures for social media involvement, data was collected
using an online. Since the study focuses on the use of social media websites, it was
not necessary to address the concerns of individuals that do not have access to the
Internet. A convenience sampling method was used, by sending e-mail invitations
to colleagues, students, personal contacts, professional list-serve groups and other
email contacts. Moreover, links to the survey were placed on Facebook, namely on
Table 1 Dimensions of social media involvement
Social media involvement
dimensions Definition
Social media consumption Extent to which individuals use social media for travel related
information (for example reading reviews or watching videos)
Creation of social media
content
Participation on travel related social media by writing reviews,
posting photos and videos
Perceived playfulness Extent to which using social media website for travel purposes is
perceived to be entertaining and fun
Level of interest Overall interest in travel related social media
Travel Social Media Involvement: A Proposed Measure 217
the researchers’wall, but also on professional research groups. Although conve-
nience sampling has the disadvantage of offering no guarantee of a representative
and unbiased sample (Gravetter and Forzano 2011), it is the most employed method
in social and behavioural sciences (Durrheim and Painter 2008; Gravetter and
Forzano 2011) and has the advantage of obtaining a large number of responses.
Table 2 Measures for social media involvement’s dimensions
Construct Indicators References
Consumption of
social media
Before travelling...
SMC1—I read hotel reviews from other travellers
SMC2—I searched for travel information on
social media websites
SMC3—I looked at activity/attractions reviews
of other travellers
SMC4—I read other travellers’experiences and
tips
While travelling...
SMC5—I search for travel information on social
media websites (for example, where to eat or
things to do)
New measures
Creation of social
media content
While travelling...
SMCR1—I check in to the location I am
at/update my location on social media (for
example, on Foursquare, Facebook)
After travelling...
SMCR2—I write hotel reviews on social media
websites.
SMCR3—I post photos on social media websites.
SMCR4—I write reviews of activities/attractions
on social media websites.
SMCR5—I put videos on social media websites
SMCR6—I write reviews of the place and/or
monuments I visited on social media websites.
New measures
Perceived playful-
ness of social
media
PP1—Using social media for travel purposes is
enjoyable
Adapted from Lee
et al. (2005)
PP2—Using social media websites for travel
purposes is fun
PP3—Using social media websites for travel
purposes stimulates my curiosity
Adapted from Moon
and Kim (2001)
PP4—I consider the use of social media for travel
purposes a big hassle. (R)
Adapted from
Verhoef and
Langerak (2001)
Interest in social
media
Social Media for travel purposes is...
ISM1 Unimportant...important
ISM2—Unexciting...Exciting
ISM3—Doesn’t matter to me...Matters to me
ISM4—Boring...Interesting
ISM5—Useless...Useful
McQuarrie and
Munson (1992)
218 S. Amaro and P. Duarte
The questionnaire was available online between July 17th and September 12th of
2012. During this period a total of 1,759 complete responses were obtained of
which 1,732 were considered valid.
3.3 Respondent’s Profile
Respondents in this study were from 51 countries, with a prominence of responses
from European residents, specifically Portuguese residents. This was expected,
given that the researchers reside in Portugal and have more available contacts
from people residing in this country. The age group with the most significant
number of responses was the age group 18–29, with 34.6 % of the total of responses,
while only approximately 13 % are aged over 50. In terms of gender, there is a slight
skew towards a higher proportion of female participants (61.5 %). The sample
seems to be composed by highly educated individuals, with approximately 88 % of
the respondents holding at least a college degree, against only 11.6 % who have
only completed the 12th grade or less. Other studies addressing the use of social
media for travel purposes have also revealed similar profiles (e.g. Gretzel and Yoo
2008).
3.4 Instrument Validation
The reliability and validity of the measures were tested with a confirmatory factor
analysis (CFA) using SmartPLS 2.0 (Ringle et al. 2005). This approach is consid-
ered to be more reliable and valid than other approaches (Afthanorhan 2013).
Moreover, PLS-SEM readily incorporates both reflective and formative measures
(Hair et al. 2013).
As can be observed in Table 3, the data indicates that the measures are robust in
terms of their reliability, since all indicator loadings are higher than 0.7 and are
significant at the 0.001 level, indicating that each measure is accounting for 50 % or
more of the variance of the underlying construct (Chin 1998). Moreover, all
Cronbach’s alpha are higher than 0.9, way above the minimum threshold of 0.6,
demonstrating that each constructs’indicators have the same meaning. Further-
more, the composite reliabilities exceed the recommended threshold value of 0.70
(Bagozzi and Yi 1988).
Construct validity was assessed by both convergent validity, which detects if the
indicators for a construct are more correlated with one another than with indicators
of another construct, and discriminant validity, which determines if a construct is
truly distinct from other constructs both in terms of how much it correlates with
other constructs and how distinctly indicators represent only this single construct
(Hair et al. 2010).
Travel Social Media Involvement: A Proposed Measure 219
To assess convergent validity, Fornell and Larcker (1981) suggest using the
average variance extracted (AVE). The results, presented in Table 4, support
convergent validity, since they all exceed 0.50.
For discriminant validity the two measures that are typically used are the
Fornell-Larcker criterion and the cross loadings. The first test assesses if a construct
is more strongly related to its own measures than with any other construct by
examining the overlap in variance by comparing the AVE of each construct with
the squared correlations among constructs (Chin 2010). Table 5shows the correla-
tions between constructs. The diagonal elements are the square roots of the AVEs
that exceed all corresponding off diagonal elements. Therefore, each construct
shares more variance with its own block of indicators than with another latent
variable representing a different block of indicators, supporting the adequate
discriminant validity of the scales.
Discriminant validity was further assessed by extracting the factor and cross
loadings of all indicators to their respective constructs. Not only should each
indicator be strongly related to the construct it attempts to reflect, but should also
not have a stronger connection with another construct (Chin 2010). The results,
presented in Table 6, indicate that all indicators loaded on their respective construct
more highly than on any other, confirming that the constructs are distinct.
Table 3 Reliability measures
Construct Indicators
Indicator
loadings t-statistic
Composite
reliability
Cronbach’s
alfa
Social media
consumption
SMC1 0.90 148.91
***
0.95 0.94
SMC2 0.90 152.63
***
SMC3 0.95 301.21
***
SMC4 0.95 297.25
***
SMC5 0.77 68.70
***
Social media Creation SMCR1 0.72 46.04
***
SMCR2 0.75 57.15
***
0.93 0.90
SMCR3 0.86 118.23
***
SMCR4 0.92 225.28
***
SMCR5 0.77 57.81
***
SMCR6 0.90 158.36
***
Perceived playfulness of
social media
PP1 0.95 321.16
***
0.95 0.93
PP2 0.95 288.96
***
PP3 0.93 223.21
***
PP4 0.80 54.07
***
Interest in social media ISM1 0.84 93.34
***
0.94 0.92
ISM2 0.88 111.45
***
ISM3 0.89 140.94
***
ISM4 0.89 123.64
***
ISM5 0.87 108.78
***
***
Significant at the 0.001 level based on 5,000 bootstrap samples
220 S. Amaro and P. Duarte
To assess the formative construct (social media involvement) it is necessary to
validate if each first order construct contributes to form the second order construct
(Chin 1998; Hair et al. 2011). Therefore, the weights of the first order constructs on
the second order constructs and their significance were examined (see Table 7). For
Table 4 Average variance extracted (AVE)
Construct AVE
Social media consumption 0.80
Social media creation 0.68
Perceived playfulness in social media 0.82
Interest in social media 0.76
Table 5 Discriminant validity of the constructs—correlations between constructs
Interest in SM PP of SM SM consumption SM creation
Interest in SM 0.87
PP of SM 0.54 0.91
SM consumption 0.41 0.78 0.89
SM creation 0.44 0.60 0.56 0.82
PP Perceived playfulness, SM Social media
Table 6 Factor loadings (bolded) and cross loadings
Interest in SM PP in SM Social media consumption Social media creation
ISM1 0.84 0.48 0.38 0.38
ISM2 0.88 0.47 0.34 0.38
ISM3 0.88 0.49 0.38 0.43
ISM4 0.89 0.48 0.34 0.37
ISM5 0.86 0.43 0.35 0.32
PP1 0.52 0.95 0.76 0.60
PP2 0.53 0.95 0.73 0.60
PP3 0.54 0.93 0.72 0.56
PP4 0.35 0.80 0.61 0.41
SMC1 0.31 0.70 0.90 0.43
SMC2 0.42 0.71 0.90 0.53
SMC3 0.37 0.72 0.95 0.50
SMC4 0.36 0.72 0.95 0.49
SMC5 0.38 0.64 0.77 0.54
SMCR1 0.32 0.45 0.44 0.72
SMCR2 0.33 0.48 0.54 0.75
SMCR3 0.42 0.57 0.46 0.86
SMCR4 0.40 0.53 0.50 0.92
SMCR5 0.26 0.36 0.32 0.77
SMCR6 0.39 0.54 0.47 0.90
PP Perceived playfulness, SM Social media
Travel Social Media Involvement: A Proposed Measure 221
a formative higher-order construct, the weights of the lower-order constructs are
especially important as they represent actionable drivers of the higher-order con-
struct (Becker et al. 2012).
All first order constructs weights are significant, which means that there is
empirical support for the first order constructs relevance for the construction of
the formative second order construct as theoretically conceived, demonstrating a
sufficient level of validity (Hair et al. 2011). Moreover, the weights are higher than
0.10 and their sign is consistent with the underlying theory (Andreev et al. 2009).
In conclusion, the results empirically show that social media involvement can be
conceptualized as a formative construct composed by four distinct dimensions,
namely interest in social media, social media consumption, social media creation
and social media’s perceived playfulness.
4 Conclusions, Discussion and Implications
As travel social media applications continue to proliferate a deeper understanding
of social media use is needed to advance knowledge and further practice. This
research was motivated by a broad interest in understanding travellers’behaviour
toward travel related social media, proposing and validating a construct termed
social media involvement. This construct is a good start to understand social
behaviour to create online social media travel marketing strategies. Depending on
their level of involvement, travellers may be more passive or active when they
receive advertising communication, and limit or extend their processing of this
information (Laurent and Kapferer 1985). Therefore, social media involvement
could be a useful instrument for online travel marketer to adapt to these differences.
Moreover, travellers that are more involved with social media are considered to be
an attractive demographic for online travel marketers (Gretzel et al. 2007). They are
more likely to perceive trip planning as an essential process in which they typically
become very involved (Gretzel et al. 2007). Online travel marketers can implement
strategies to promote the creation of user generated content and enjoyment, in order
for travellers to become more involved. For instance, Tripadvisor rewards its
members with virtual badges taking into account the number of reviews posted.
Moreover, Tripadvisor periodically sends emails to members informing them of
how many people read their reviews and which country the review readers are from.
Table 7 Weights of the first order constructs on the second order constructs
Dimensions Weight t-statistic
Social media involvement Social media consumption 0.34 67.02
***
Social media creation 0.32 53.51
***
Perceived playfulness social media 0.29 70.49
***
Interest in social media 0.27 40.19
***
***
Significant at 0.001 level based on 5,000 bootstraps
222 S. Amaro and P. Duarte
Measuring social media involvement is also important for the personalization of
online marketing strategies.
Although there are many studies that focus on social media and their effect on
travel planning and travel decisions, there is no empirical evidence linking the use
of social media to other constructs. Thus, the social media involvement construct
can be incorporated in other models to study possible effects on other aspects
regarding travel planning and purchases, such as online travel purchases. It is
believed that online social networking will play a crucial role in online transactions
(Kasavana et al. 2010). Therefore, future research needs to address the relationship
between social media use and online travel purchasing behaviour. Social Media
Involvement could perhaps predict such behaviour. This study anticipates that
social media involved consumers will be more likely to purchase online than
those with lower levels of involvement.
Social media involvement could also be used as a segmentation criterion,
followed by a further analysis of the characteristics of each segment, such as age,
gender, education level or online travel experience. A deeper understanding of the
characteristics of social media users for travel purposes, such as which websites
they use and the motives of their interaction will help travel providers assess the
revenue opportunities that the various social media channels might provide (Noone
et al. 2011). On the other hand, segmentation would allow travel marketers to
personalize and cater for travellers with different levels of involvement accord-
ingly. For example, travellers with a high social media involvement level are more
likely to create user generated content and can highly influence others. Therefore,
travel marketers need to carefully nurture this segment, as they often act as
advocates of a brand or an online travel provider.
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