عوامل تعیین کننده کاربرد رسانه های اجتماعی هتل Determinants of hotel social media continued usage

Introduction The emergence of Web 2.0 has transformed the way in which people communicate, share experiences, and search for information about traveling (Ayeh et al., 2013a), as well as increased the use of social media networks before, during, and after travel. Minazzi (2015, p. 12) has defined social media networks as “websites that allow subscribers to connect and interact with other people . . . [which] creates a group of people who share information and content.” In effect, social media networks allow users to engage with businesses and other users anywhere and at any time. This trend of interaction and ubiquity poses considerable implications for future online marketing strategies in the hotel industry. On the one hand, the increased significance of interaction on social media can generate ever-new technologies that enable users to interact anywhere and at any time (Lee, 2005). On the other hand, regarding ubiquity, today’s hotel guests can access information about hotels whenever they want and regardless of their location (Kim et al., 2008b). Together, interaction and ubiquity are thus important constructs for the continued use of social media networks among hotel guests. Continued use relates to consumers’ behavior and their intentions to use information technologies (IT) after their initial adoption (Chang, 2013). However, research on the determinants of the continued use of social media in the hotel context remains limited. Chuttur (2009) has revealed a clear gap in literature on intended continued use of social media. More recently, Lin et al. (2014), who studied social media using Bagozzi’s self-regulation framework, found that individuals form opinions about situations and, based on positive or negative feelings, decide to either continue or discontinue using products or services. Berezina et al. (2016) stressed the importance of the continued use of social media in the hotel industry by revealing that acquiring new customers is more expensive than retaining existing ones. As such, traditional research on intended use can be considered of limited value and should be replaced with research on intended continued use to explore how social media channels can be used to retain existing hotel guests. The importance of continued use in the tourism context was confirmed by Escobar–Rodríguez and Carvajal–Trujillo (2014), who focused on airline ticket purchases, as well as Chung et al. (2015), who studied destination websites and visit intentions. The latter study especially confirmed the significance of adequate website design in order to continue to attract tourists to hotel websites, which ultimately boosts visit intentions.