WHICH TYPES OF DESTINATION IMAGE CONTENT ON SOCIAL MEDIA STIMULATES CONSUMER ENGAGEMENT? A QUASI-EXPERIMENTAL ANALYSIS

Abstract

The aim of this paper was to determine how different image contents of tourism destinations affect different sub-processes of consumer engagement. For this purpose, in the first step, a qualitative research was conducted by the method of content analysis to analyse 4,103 images of national tourism organizations of Spain and Italy published on social media – Facebook and Instagram. The results of this analysis showed which categories of image content these destinations most often publish on their social media. From these categories, the image contents that represented stimuli in the quasi-experiment were selected. A total of 508 respondents in the Republic of Croatia participated in the quasi-experiment. The analysis found that there are statistically significant differences between different categories of image content and consumer engagement. The results obtained by this research significantly contribute to the analysis of consumer engagement in the context of tourism, especially since the quasi-experimental method that was applied is rarely used in such research. In addition, some practical guidelines have been obtained for professionals managing the marketing of tourist destinations.