Will people travel because of envy? The influence of travel experience sharing on the post-90s WeChat users

ABSTRACTMany people share travel experience on WeChat Moments (WM). At present, most scholars have analysed the phenomenon from the perspective of destination image construction, but few of them investigate the uniqueness of the WM platform and the social factors of WM are rarely discussed. Based on the social comparison theory, this paper regards the sharing of travel experience on WM as an inducing factor of upward social comparison in WM, and explores its influence on travel intention. The role of benign envy and potential tourists’ self-presentation in this mechanism are also explored. Through experimental design and survey instruments, it is found that high-quality travel experience sharing on WM may increase potential tourists’ travel intention. In addition, high-quality travel experience sharing can induce benign envy, which will increase potential tourists’ travel intention as well. When the level of potential tourists’ self-presentation is high, the relationship between WM travel experience sharing and benign envy is stronger. The results provide theoretical insights into travel experience sharing. Practically, the potential tourists’ benign envy and self-presentation intention can be used to benefit tourism destination marketing.KEYWORDS: Benign envyself-presentationtravel experience sharingsocial comparison theoryWeChat MomentsSUBJECT CLASSIFICATION CODES: tourismtourism experiencebehavioural intentions Disclosure statementNo potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).