Anticipated positive evaluation of social media posts: social return, revisit intention, recommend intention and mediating role of memorable tourism experience

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine how the anticipated positive evaluation of a tourist’s social media posts by significant others, known as social return (SR), impacts the memorable tourism experience (MTE) and how this evaluation influences the revisit intention and recommend intention (operationalized dimensions of behavioral intention-BI). Design/methodology/approach The relationship among SR, MTE and BI was measured using established scales that were assessed for reliability and validity. Structural equation modeling was applied to the data collected from 316 respondents who had visited a heritage site. Findings The findings indicate that SR significantly impacts MTE and BI and MTE partially mediates the relationship between SR and BI. However, the impact of SR on revisit intention is weak despite being statistically significant. Research limitations/implications This paper seeks to extend the SR concept introduced in tourism and hospitality literature in 2018. This study validated the scale in a new context while retaining the inviolability of the scale by including a world heritage site. This study used an extended version of the MTE scale and an adapted version of the BI scale. The use of these three scales together is an attempt to examine the symbolic nature of social media posts that can generate perceptions regarding the memorability of the tourist’s visit. Originality/value SR is a relatively new construct and has been very sparsely studied with no known study linking SR, MTE and BI.