Understanding customer engagement and social media activities in tourism: A latent profile analysis and cross-validation

Kevin Kam Fung So, Wei Wei and Drew Martin

Journal of Business Research, 2021, vol. 129, issue C, 474-483

Abstract: Customer engagement has gained noteworthy attention among academics and practitioners over the last decade. Two studies employ latent profile analysis (LPA), a person-centered approach, to uncover discrete customer subgroups with similar profiles based on multiple customer engagement dimensions and relate these LPA groups to brand loyalty. Study 1 identifies four latent classes of airline and hotel customers. Customer engagement dimension scores inform four class profiles: enthusiastic, reserved, unpassionate, and disengaged. Results show a significant association between the latent profiles and customer participation in customer engagement activities. Interestingly, the results indicate that highly engaged customers do not necessarily participate in cyberspace-related customer engagement activities; instead, they participate more often in traditional, offline customer engagement activities. Study 2 validates these findings in a tourism destination context. The consistent findings across the two studies challenge the customer engagement literature’s general assumption linking customer engagement and consumer participation in social media.

Keywords: Customer engagement; Brand loyalty; Latent profile analysis; Segmentation; Person-centered approach; Tourism; Hotels (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:jbrese:v:129:y:2021:i:c:p:474-483

DOI: 10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.05.054

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