Dynamic Mechanism of Destination Brand Diffusion: Agent-Based Modeling and Simulation

Abstract

In recent years, social media has emerged as an important channel for the dissemination of destination branding. Despite the fact that the dissemination of information through social media enables a broader audience to become acquainted with destinations, the dissemination process of trending events exhibits variances. Consequently, the precise impact of the underlying mechanisms that govern the spread of information on the efficacy of disseminating destination brand trending events remains ambiguous. In an endeavor to bridge this gap, an improved SEIR model was developed in this research to investigate the dynamic dissemination mechanisms and influencing factors of destination trending events within social media. The model was applied to simulate the diffusion mechanism of destinations’ trending events. The results show that during the dissemination process of destination trending events on social media, the proportion of users affected at different stages influences the ultimate effectiveness of information propagation. In light of these insights, this research proposes a social media trending event dissemination strategy to aid in enhancing the propagation efficiency of destination brands through existing resources.