Tourism-based customer engagement: the construct, antecedents, and consequences

ABSTRACT

Drawing on a service-dominant (S-D) logic perspective, this study identifies key antecedents and consequences of tourism customer engagement, which remain nebulous to date. We develop a structural model that is tested on a sample of 310 customers at different tourist destination sites and attractions in India. The results reveal a positive effect of place authenticity and place attachment on customer engagement. The findings also indicate customer engagement’s positive effect on the development of customer trust, brand loyalty, and co-creation. Third, we identify customer engagement’s mediating role in the effect of place attachment and place authenticity on customer trust, loyalty, and co-creation. Specifically, place authenticity was found to exert a partial mediating effect in the association between place attachment and customer engagement. As such, this research bids newer insight into the role of tourism-based customer engagement, from which we develop relevant implications.

KEYWORDS:

• Customer engagement
• place attachment
• place authenticity
• customer trust
• co-creation
• brand loyalty
• tourism

Acknowledgement

The third author (Dr. Jamid Ul Islam) would like to acknowledge Business, Society & Environment (BSE) Research Lab, Prince Sultan University, Saudi Arabia for their support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

ORCID

Raouf Ahmad Rather http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9242-1165

Jamid Ul Islam http://orcid.org/0000-0002-2545-5162