SDL/ELM-informed brand co-creation and engagement during the COVID-19 crisis: Investigating the conditional effects of involvement and age

Abstract

Though brand co-creation (BCO) and customer brand engagement (CBE) are identified as important research priorities, empirically derived insights into their relationship with tourism-consumers’ consequent destination revisit intention (RVI) remain limited, particularly during the COVID-19. In reply to this gap, we develop service-dominant-logic and elaboration-likelihood-model-informed models, which test the impact of tourism-based affective-, cognitive-, and behavioral-CBE on BCO, involvement, and RVI. To explore such matters, we recruited consumer-based survey data by using structural equation modeling, PROCESS Model, and Johnson–Neyman technique. Our analyses reveal that CBE’s dimensions exercise different impacts on BCO, which consequently affect RVI. Second, we ascertain involvement’s direct effects on BCO and RVI. Third, results reveal that positive impact of BCO on RVI is stronger for low-involved consumers than highly involved consumers. Finally, results indicate that consumers’ age does not significantly moderate the relationship between BCO and RVI. We conclude by offering crucial theoretical/practical implications that advance from this study.