Tourists’ Personal Development Through Participatory Consumer-Generated Content

The paper seeks to investigate key factors influencing the personal development of tourists. This study examines the relationship between participatory consumer-generated content and tourists’ capabilities, emotions, and skills, as well as the moderating effect of previous tourists’ experiences. To evaluate the research model, 301 valid responses were examined using the PLS-SEM technique. The empirical findings showed that participatory consumer-generated content positively relates to tourists’ capabilities, emotions, and skills. Moreover, previous tourists’ experiences moderate the relationships of participatory consumer-generated content with tourists’ capabilities and skills; however, previous tourists’ experiences have no moderation effect on tourists’ emotions. Thus, our paper's findings offer valuable contributions to theory and practice. Practitioners and authorities should stimulate users to share their tourism experiences and take the initiative to share easily traceable and searchable data. Moreover, businesses should implement activities that encourage tourists to share their experiences as soon as possible and make travel and tourism websites and social media platforms readily available.