Consumer engagement in tourism-based images on social networking sites and behavioral intention to visit a destination

Consumer engagement dimensions consist of cognitive, affective and behavioral engagement. These dimensions can trigger consumer buying decisions. In the current study, we aim to investigate the cognitive, affective and behavioral engagement in the tourism destination-related images on social network sites (SNSs), for example, destination images in tourism pages and groups on Facebook, Instagram or Twitter and their effects on the social network users behavior intention to visit the tourism destination. We collected 151 respondents' data from the users who regularly browse SNS tourism pages and groups. For data analysis, we used the PLS-SEM approach to weigh the measurement and structural model. Results demonstrated that two dimensions of consumer engagement, affective and behavioral engagement, significantly influence the behavioral intention to visit the destination, whereas the cognitive engagement effect on behavioral intention was found to be insignificant. The study contributes to determining consumer engagement in the tourism industry on SNSs and concludes with some key implications in terms of images in SNSs and consumer engagement states arising from the study findings.