Adoption of travel information in user-generated content on social media: the moderating effect of social presence

Namho Chung, Heejeong Han and Chulmo Koo

Behaviour and Information Technology, 2015, vol. 34, issue 9, 902-919

Abstract: Travel patterns have gradually changed from group travel to individual travel. An increasing number of people acquire travel information through various types of media. One of the alternative information sources is social media, which enables users to exchange information among members. However, one of the characteristics of social media is information sharing, not information search, which involves both giving (i.e. posting) and taking (i.e. selective reading, forwarding, replying, linking, and liking) information. Compared to the ‘giving’ side of information-sharing research, less effort has been spent on the ‘taking’ side of information research. Therefore, we investigate travel information adoption in social media as well as how individuals communicate with each other. We use the elaboration likelihood model, which measures the impact of central (e.g. argument quality) and peripheral (e.g. credibility) cues on traveller information-sharing behaviour corresponding with social presence on social media. The results of an empirical analysis of 527 respondents, who were experienced in travel information adoption via social media, were examined. Our findings revealed that argument quality had a positive effect on perceived usefulness and source credibility positively affected perceived usefulness and social relationships. Perceived usefulness had a significant positive effect on social relationships. Both perceived usefulness and social relationships affected travel information adoption. Lastly, the levels of argument quality and source credibility perceived by social media members were found to differ according to the level of social presence.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/0144929X.2015.1039060 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:taf:tbitxx:v:34:y:2015:i:9:p:902-919

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.tandfonline.com/pricing/journal/tbit20

DOI: 10.1080/0144929X.2015.1039060

Access Statistics for this article

Behaviour and Information Technology is currently edited by Dr Panos P Markopoulos

More articles in Behaviour and Information Technology from Taylor & Francis Journals
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Chris Longhurst ().