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Measuring customer social participation in online travel communities: Scale development and validation

Shampy Kamboj (Department of Management studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India)
Zillur Rahman (Department of Management studies, Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, India)

Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology

ISSN: 1757-9880

Article publication date: 2 October 2017

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Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop and validate a scale to measure customer social participation in brand communities, specifically e-travel companies’ communities.

Design/methodology/approach

A qualitative research has been undertaken to generate a pool of items. Based on Churchill’s (1979) scale development process, numerous reliability and validity tests have been conducted to confirm the scale structure. Data were collected through online and field surveys from the students and hotel guests who have either subscribed, liked or joined any e-travel service companies’ community brand page using any social networking site or have ever posted or considered reviews and ratings of any e-travel service companies via their official site or via a mobile app while planning their travel.

Findings

The findings depict nine items on a three-dimensional scale for measuring customer participation in travel brand communities created on social networking sites.

Research limitations/implications

The findings provide important implications for hotel and travel managers and are likely to encourage future studies in the field of social media and travel brand communities.

Originality/value

This paper contributes to the literature by providing refinement to the distinct operationalization and conceptualization of customer online participation, specifically in social media-based travel brand communities. This paper is the first to develop a multidimensional scale of customer social participation in e-travel companies’ communities. This is a new addition to existing literature, as the majority of empirical studies in this field are from participation other than customer social participation and contexts different from e-travel companies.

Keywords

Citation

Kamboj, S. and Rahman, Z. (2017), "Measuring customer social participation in online travel communities: Scale development and validation", Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Vol. 8 No. 3, pp. 432-464. https://doi.org/10.1108/JHTT-08-2016-0041

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017, Emerald Publishing Limited

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