Abstract
Purpose: Local events play a significant role in rebuilding relationships and increasing engagement with local communities in the postpandemic. This study aims to investigate how potential attendees’ usage of local event hashtags facilitates social media engagement, further enhancing their intentions to attend local events. Design/methodology/approach: This study adopted an exploratory sequential mixed approach. The qualitative phase used 12 semistructured in-depth interviews to explore motivations for hashtag usage and developed instruments to measure hashtag usage and social media engagement. The quantitative phase examined the relationship among motivations and behaviors of hashtag usage, social media engagement and behavioral intention through 522 online surveys. Findings: Qualitatively, four themes manifest in hashtag users’ motivations in the context of local events: self-promoting, searching, summarizing and conforming. The quantitative findings show that these motivations influence active and passive hashtag usage differently, leading to different types of social media engagement (i.e. persistent, customized and triggered engagement). All social media engagements can significantly enhance the intention to attend local events. Originality/value: This study divides active and passive hashtag users, conceptualizes social media engagement through hashtag usage under the affordance approach and develops instruments for these concepts. It emphasizes the importance of hashtag usage that drives social media engagement and provides insights for local event planners.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 254-270 |
Number of pages | 17 |
Journal | Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology |
Volume | 15 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Mar 5 2024 |
Keywords
- Active and passive hashtag users
- Affordance lens
- Local events in postpandemic
- Motivation of hashtag usage
- Social media engagement
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Information Systems
- Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management
- Computer Science Applications