Impact of social media posts on travelers' attitudes and behaviors towards a destination after a natural disaster: moderating role of the source of the post

• Published in: Journal of sustainable tourism 2023-11, Vol.ahead-of-print (ahead-of-print), p.1-19
• Main Authors: Ai, Jin, Lv, Xingyang, Gursoy, Dogan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Digital media; Disasters; Earthquakes; intention of visit; Natural disaster; Natural disasters; partial presentation; Psychological factors; public sentiment; Seismic activity; sense of loss; Social networks
• ISSN: 0966-9582; 1747-7646
• DOI: 10.1080/09669582.2020.1831002

This study, taking Jiuzhaigou as an example, analyzes the impacts of social media posts after a natural disaster on potential visitors' perceptions and their willingness to visit a destination. Utilizing a multi-method approach, this study first content analyzes the social media posts about the 7.0 magnitude earthquake and reactions to those posts to identify the impacts of those posts on public sentiment. Then, an experimental study is conducted to identify the significant differences in the impacts of social media posts by the official destination social media accounts and by individuals on two dimensions of public sentiment and the mediating role each public sentiment dimension plays in the effects of social media posts on visit intentions. Significant differences are found in the content and form of social media posts coming from different sources. Compared with social medial posts from the official destination accounts, posts from individuals have significantly higher impacts on willingness to visit a destination after a disaster. The loss perception and sense of loss are the key psychological factors that affect willingness to visit after a disaster. These two factors also play full mediating roles in the relationship between social media posts from individuals and the willingness to visit the destination after the earthquake.