Author

Samaan Al-Msallam , Abdullah Awad Alhaddad

Published in

Journal of Research in Business and Management Vol. 5, Issue 7 July 2016

Abstract

Hotel industry can use social media to engage customers and clients in dialogue and recognize their needs. Through these networking sites, hotel industry can interact with consumers before, during, and after the vacation experience. Social media is relatively new and the advantages are abundance such as it is affordable, it is viral and has the potential to spread brand awareness quickly and far and it is said to be able to develop link baits, attention and massive amounts of traffic. The purpose of this study was to investigate benefit factors of member participation and the relationships between community participation and brand commitment in hotel online communities. The present study identified five benefit factors (functional, hedonic, monetary, and social and psychological benefits) as the predictors of member participation in hotel Facebook fan pages. Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) was used to test the conceptual model. Based on the results of SEM, the results indicated that four benefit factors (functional, hedonic, social and psychological benefits) positively influenced member's community participation. The findings of this study provide significant insights for the researchers and marketers. From the theoretical perspective, this is the first empirical research that investigated consumer benefits and responses (i.e., community participation and brand commitment) in online communities managed by hotel sector. Thus, the study contributes to the understanding of consumer behavior in social media. From the practical perspective, the study suggests some strategies to effectively design hotel Face book fan pages, which can strengthen the relationships with current consumers and attract potential consumers.

Link to read full paper

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Abdullah_Alhaddad2/publication/305263474_

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