Exploring the Impact of Social Media Marketing on Tourism Destination Marketing and Revisit Intention: The Extension of Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) Model

Abstract

Tourism is widely regarded as one of the largest and fastest growing industries on the world. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on international visitor arrivals and receipts for countries worldwide. Recognizing the need for tourism destinations to develop entirely new marketing strategies in the post-COVID-19 era, the establishment of travel brands for tourism destinations is critical to facilitating more effective marketing campaigns. As a result, social media marketing has been recognized as a viable marketing technique for promoting products, services, and information via social networking sites (SNSs). This is perhaps the first study to use the stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model to examine how SMMA affect tourism destination marketing and, subsequently, revisit intention for rural tourism destinations in Sarawak, Malaysia. A total of 239 valid questionnaires were used to assess the fitness of the measurement (inner) and structural (outer) models. Interestingly, the empirical findings indicate that SMMA (i.e., entertainment, interaction, trendiness, customization, and word-of-mouth) all contribute significantly to the success of rural tourism destination marketing efforts. Additionally, it was discovered that a well-developed tourism destination marketing strategy is critical for increasing tourists' intention to revisit, particularly to rural tourism destinations in Sarawak.