The application of stimulus-organism-response paradigm: the role of social media in Thailand's destination image and behavioral intentions

Abstract

The role of the tourism industry has been well recognized in the development of the nation. The tourism industry not only contributes to Gross Domestic Product (GDP), but it also has positive social impacts for locals (e.g. access to essential services, development of transportation and infrastructure, direct and indirect employment and pride in local culture and history). Therefore, tourism is important to a nation with rich resources for travel like Thailand. Even though sustainable tourism is successful, several challenges remain for Thailand, for example the increasing number of destinations worldwide, the rising dominance of new markets, major changes in tourist behaviors, and the proliferation of technology and online media. Social media is ever increasing its penetration globally, and tourism, as a very information sensitive industry, is inevitably affected. Social media has become an important source of tourist information and has changed the way destination marketing organizations (DMOs) compete on a global scale.

This research, therefore, investigates the relationships between social media, Thailand’s destination image and behavioral intentions. The objectives of this study are twofold. The first objective is to examine Thailand’s destination image as perceived by international tourists and to study how social media contributes to the formation of destination image. The second objective is related to the implications of the results as it aims to provide insight information about the roles of social media for destination marketing organizations, policymakers and tourism businesses.

In order to achieve these research objectives, the conceptual framework is developed based on the Stimulus-Organism-Respond (S-O-R) paradigm together with the Theory of Planned Behavior (TPB). Quantitative research is conducted to determine the relationships between the variables. The variables in this study are information quality in social media as a stimulus (operationalized by intrinsic quality, contextual quality, representational quality and social quality), destination image (operationalized by cognitive image and affective image), and behavioral intentions (operationalized by revisit intention, WOM intention and e-WOM intention). From 550 questionnaires distributed, 410 usable responses were returned, giving a response rate of 74.6%. In order to verify the hypothesized relationships, several statistical analyses were employed including reliability tests, exploratory factor analysis, Pearson’s correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis.

The empirical results indicated that all dimensions of information quality were significant predictors of cognitive image, with the exception of social quality. Out of all variables, representational quality exhibited the strongest power in predicting cognitive image. Unexpectedly, the relationship between information quality and affective image was not observed. In addition, cognitive image positively influenced affective image. As supported by TPB, both cognitive and affective destination image were found to be significant predictors of behavioral intentions; revisit intention, WOM intention, and e-WOM intention. Regardless of the type of behavioral intention, cognitive image showed a higher predictive power than affective image. Revisit intention was also found to be a predicting variable for both WOM and e-WOM intentions. The higher the level of revisit intention, the greater the likelihood of WOM and e-WOM.

These results confirmed the application of the Stimulus-Organism-Response paradigm and the Theory of Planned Behavior in an e-tourism context. In order to ensure the effectiveness of tourism information in social media, attention should be given to intrinsic quality (accuracy, completeness, objectivity, reliability and originality), contextual quality (amount of data, relevancy, timeliness, ease of understanding and value added), and representational quality (conciseness, accessibility and consistency). In terms of policy recommendations, a number of suggestions were made including the equal promotion of digital network infrastructure across the nation, the development of integrated tourism information across sectors, the enforcement of the legal structure, investment in human capital, and collaboration between stakeholders.