The role of online experience sharing and tourist satisfaction in satisfaction with life: A case of university students in Hong Kong

Abstract

Sharing travel experiences through social network sites enables interactive forms of communication which leads to the creation of new interpretations or meanings of tourist satisfaction. Thus, tourist satisfaction does not depend on the images or quality services of a destination, but also from online sharing with friends and social network sites’ members that occur after the trip. Previous literature on tourist satisfaction mainly focuses on tourist’s on-site experiences. Scant attention has been devoted to tourist’s online experience sharing and how its related to tourist satisfaction with life (SATLIFE). Building on the literature of quality of experience and bottom-up theory in leisure studies, this study aims to examine the impact of quality of online experience sharing on SATLIFE through mediating various stages of tourist satisfaction.

A multi-stage development procedure proposed by Churchill (1979) were used to develop a measurement instrument for all constructs. Data were collected via a self-administered questionnaire of 553 university students in Hong Kong. This study employed structural equation modelling to examine causal relationships among constructs. Results showed that satisfaction with online sharing of travel experiences (SATQOE) was positively influenced by quality of online experience sharing. Further, it was found that satisfaction with travel experience (SATEXP) did significantly affect SATQOE, and SATEXP and SATQOE had a significant impact on SATLIFE.

The present study contributes to a growing body of literature on quality of life in general, and tourist satisfaction in particular. Findings from this study also highlight the importance of life domain satisfaction in the relationship among SATQOE, SATEXP and SATLIFE. In addition, this study concludes that SATQOE is the best effective predictors to promote life satisfaction by providing the enjoyment of online sharing after the trip.