Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609

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Tourism Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

Customer engagement with tourism social media brands

Paul Harrigan a, Uwana Evers a, Morgan Miles b, *, Timothy Daly c
a
The University of Western Australia, UWA Business School M263, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley, WA 6009, Australia
b
University of Canterbury, Department of Management, Marketing and Entrepreneurship, Private Bag 4800, Christchurch, New Zealand
c
United Arab Emirates University, Business Administration Department, PO BOX 15551, Al Ain, Saudi Arabia

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: In tourism, customer engagement has been found to boost loyalty, trust and brand evaluations. Customer
Received 29 April 2016 engagement is facilitated by social media, but neither of these phenomena is well-researched in tourism.
Received in revised form This research contributes in two ways. First, we validate the Customer Engagement with Tourism Brands
18 September 2016
(CETB) 25-item scale proposed by So, King & Sparks (2014) in a social media context, and offer an
Accepted 19 September 2016
alternative three-factor 11-item version of the scale. Second, we replicate their proposed structural
Available online 26 September 2016
model, and test our alternative model, to predict the behavioural intention of loyalty from engagement,
and to test customer involvement as an antecedent to engagement. Ultimately, we propose a customer
Keywords:
Customer engagement
engagement scale and a nomological framework for customer engagement, both of which can be applied
Social media in both tourism and non-tourism contexts. Managers of tourism brands on social to better assess the
Tourism nature of customer engagement with the parsimonious 11-item scale.
Brand loyalty © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Customer engagement scale

1. Introduction Social media facilitate customer engagement, but neither of these

Customer engagement has gained much attention in the recent
literature. This is due to engagement being linked with numerous
important brand performance indicators including sales growth,
customer involvement in product development, customer feed-
back, and referrals (Bijmolt et al., 2010; Bowden, 2009; Kumar et al.,
2010; Nambisan & Baron, 2007; Sawhney, Verona, & Prandelli,
2005; Van Doorn et al., 2010). Not surprisingly, much of this
brand engagement occurs online through social media (Malthouse
& Hofacker, 2010). Customers engaged with brand communities
online feel more connected to their brands, trust their preferred
brands more, are more committed to their chosen brands, have
higher brand satisfaction, and are more brand loyal (Brodie, Ili
c,
Juri
c, & Hollebeek, 2013; Jahn & Kunz, 2012).
In the tourism context, customer engagement has been found to
boost loyalty, trust and brand evaluations (So, King & Sparks, 2014).
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: paul.harrigan@uwa.edu.au (P. Harrigan), uwana.evers@uwa.
edu.au (U. Evers), morgan.miles@canterbury.ac.nz (M. Miles), tim.daly@uaeu.ac.ae
(T. Daly).
phenomena are well researched in the tourism context. This has
resulted in a need for practical social media recommendations for
tourism organizations (Cabiddu, Carlo, & Piccoli, 2014; Hudson,
Roth, Madden, & Hudson, 2015; Mistilis & Gretzel, 2013). Social
media use is high among tourism organizations, particularly Face-
book and Twitter (Leung, Bai, & Stahura, 2015); Instagram and
other social media like TripAdvisor, Airbnb and Booking.com are
growing in popularity and influence (Cabiddu et al., 2014; Filieri,
2014; Munar & Jacobsen, 2014). TripAdvisor is the world's largest
travel review company and turned over $1.246 billion in 2014, up
32 percent from the previous year (Forbes, 2015).
The goal of this research is to investigate the nature of customer
engagement with tourism social media brands. We contribute to
the tourism literature in two ways. First, we test the Customer
Engagement with Tourism Brands (CETB) scale proposed by So et al.
(2014) in a social media context. Further, we offer a psychometri-
cally sound, concise eleven-item version of the scale. The social
media context is very different to the offline hospitality brands
(hotels and airlines) context in which the CETB scale was originally
developed. Social media are driving fundamental business change,
where they enable interactive, two-way communications between
customers and organizations (Dijkmans, Kerkhof, & Beukeboom,

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.09.015
0261-5177/© 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
598 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609
2015; Hollebeek, Glynn, & Brodie, 2014; Lee & Choi, 2014; Vivek,
Beatty, & Morgan, 2012). Social media allow customers to
comment, review, create and share content across online networks.
They also allow customers direct access to organizations, brands
and marketers (Chau & Xu, 2012). This creates challenges and op-
portunities for marketers, where they must engage with customers
in real-time and manage the significant amounts of incoming
customer data (Cui, Lui, & Guo, 2012; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010;
Pagani & Mirabello, 2012). The disruptive nature of the social media
context means that it is valuable to test if a scale developed to
measure engagement in an offline context performs similarly on
social media.
Second, we empirically replicate So et al.'s (2014) proposed
conceptual model and test the nomological framework that in-
corporates customer involvement as an antecedent of customer
engagement and behavioural intention of loyalty as an outcome of
customer engagement. The next sections in this paper discuss the
conceptualisation of customer engagement, its dimensions, and
possible antecedents and consequences. The method, a survey of
U.S. consumers, is outlined before the presentation of the scale
validation and model testing results. Finally, there is a discussion
around the implications for theory and practice.
2. Literature
Customer engagement is characterised by repeated interactions
between a customer and an organization that strengthen the
emotional, psychological or physical investment a customer has in
the brand and the organization (Hollebeek et al., 2014; Phang,
Zhang, & Sutanto, 2013). Social exchange theory underpins this
notion of investment, which holds that individuals evaluate the
tangible and intangible costs and benefits of engaging in relation-
ships (Thibaut & Kelley, 1959). For customer-brand engagement to
persist, customers must at least achieve a balance in these costs and
benefits over time (Brodie, Hollebeek, Juri
c, & Ili
c et al., 2011;
Hollebeek, 2011). For example, consumers may invest enthusiasm
and attention in engaging with a brand to receive benefits such as
product news, offers, through to a sense of belonging (Blau, 1964;
Foa & Foa, 1980).
Social media are the dominant enablers of customer engage-
ment, and these technologies are very different from previous
marketer-customer technology platforms. They are owned by the
customer but are transparent, and facilitate two-way interactions
between customers and organizations (e.g. Deighton & Kornfeld,
2009; Dwyer, 2007; Hennig-Thurau et al., 2010; Vivek et al.,
2012). Goh, Heng, and Lin's (2013) finding that engaged customers'
messages were 22 times more valuable than those of marketers
underlines the importance of understanding customer engage-
ment. Social media are defined as the ‘group of Internet-based ap-
plications that build on the ideological and technological foundations
of Web 2.0 and that allow the creation and exchange of User-
Generated Content’ (Kaplan & Haenlein, 2010, p. 61). This defini-
tion means that tourism sites like TripAdvisor, Booking.com,
Airbnb, and Lonely Planet are considered as social media (Cabiddu
et al., 2014; Munar & Jacobsen, 2014). They allow customers to
comment, review, spread and even create content online that now
even appears in search engine results. The importance of social
media as a means for customer engagement within the tourism
industry cannot be ignored (Cabiddu et al., 2014; Cheng & Edwards,
2015; Dijkmans et al., 2015; Hudson et al., 2015; Munar & Jacobsen,
2014).
Customer engagement has been conceptualised in different
ways (see Table 1). The majority of customer engagement research
has been based on a multidimensional conceptualisation, encom-
passing some form of cognitive, emotional, and behavioural com-
ponents (Bowden, 2009; Brodie et al. 2013; Cheung, Lee, & Jin, 2011,
pp. 1e8; Dessart, Veloutsou, & Morgan-Thomas, 2015; Dwivedi,
2015; Hollebeek, 2011; Hollebeek et al., 2014; Patterson, Yu, & De
Ruyter, 2006; So et al., 2014). The broader conceptualisation of
customer engagement behaviours proposed by Van Doorn et al.
(2010) encompasses valence, form, scope, impact of engagement,
and the customers' goals. All of these conceptualisations assert that
customer engagement is discriminately different from involve-
ment, a construct with which it is frequently compared. As So et al.
(2014) state, involvement tends to be limited to a cognitive
component, whereas engagement incorporates cognitive,
emotional, and behavioural components (Hollebeek, 2011; Mollen
& Wilson, 2010; Vivek et al., 2012).
A recent analysis of customer engagement dimensionality
concluded that customer engagement is a multi-dimensional
construct consisting of three dimensions: cognitive (customer
focus and interest in a particular brand), emotional (feelings of
inspiration or pride caused by a particular brand) and behavioural
(customer effort and energy necessary for interaction with a
particular brand) (Kuvykaite_ & Tarute, 2015). Conceptualisations of
engagement that do not explicitly refer to underlying cognitive,
affective, and behavioural components are still likely to encompass
these dimensions. The proposed dimensions of customer engage-
ment with tourism brands (So et al., 2014) and Dwivedi's (2015)
customer brand engagement conceptualisation can be mapped,
largely, onto the customer brand engagement dimensions offered
by Hollebeek et al. (2014) (Table 2). Interaction is similar to Acti-
vation and Vigor, representing the behavioural component of
customer engagement; Identification relates to Affection and
Dedication as the emotional component of customer brand
engagement, while Attention and Absorption, the cognitive
component. The definitions of the Absorption, Enthusiasm and
Attention dimensions (So et al., 2014) have both affective and
cognitive elements.
2.1. Dimensions of customer engagement
This research builds on So et al.'s (2014) conceptualisation of
customer engagement, which incorporates five dimensions, iden-
tification, enthusiasm, attention, absorption, interaction, and
identification. As So et al. (2014) undertake a comprehensive dis-
cussion around these dimensions, the purpose of this paper is best
served by briefly introducing each dimension.
2.1.1. Enthusiasm
Enthusiasm represents an individual's “strong level of excite-
ment or zeal” and interest in a brand (Vivek, 2009, p. 60). So et al.
(2014, p. 308) note that the dimension of enthusiasm “represents
an individual's strong level of excitement and interest regarding the
focus of engagement … and differentiate the construct of engage-
ment from other similar constructs such as satisfaction.”
2.1.2. Attention
Attention refers to a customer's level of focus, consciously or
sub-consciously, on the brand. Persistent attention towards a brand
is likely to lead to higher levels of engagement (Lin, Gregor, &
Ewing, 2008; Scholer & Higgins, 2009).
2.1.3. Absorption
Absorption goes further than attention, where it refers to a
customer's high level of concentration and engrossment in a brand
 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609 599

Table 1
Examples of conceptualisations of customer engagement.

Construct Dimensions of engagement Author(s)

Customer brand engagement
Consumer brand engagement
Consumer brand engagement
Consumer brand engagement
Consumer brand engagement
Consumer engagement
Customer engagement
Customer engagement
Customer engagement
Customer engagement (process of)
(1) Identification (2) Enthusiasm (3) Attention (4) Absorption (5) Interaction So, Sparks & King (2014)
(1) Cognitive (2) Emotional (3) Behavioural Hollebeek (2011)
(1) Cognitive processing (cognitive) (2) Affection (emotional) (3) Activation (behavioural) Hollebeek et al. (2014)
(1) Cognitive (2) Emotional (3) Behavioural Dessart et al. (2015)
(1) Vigor (2) Dedication (3) Absorption Dwivedi (2015)
(1) Cognitive (2) Emotional (3) Behavioural Brodie et al. (2013)
(1) Vigor (2) Dedication (3) Absorption (4) Interaction Patterson et al. (2006)
(1) Vigor (2) Dedication (3) Absorption Cheung et al. (2011)
(1) Trust (2) Dedication (3) Reputation Enginkaya and Esen (2014)
(1) Involvement (behavioural) (2) Commitment (cognitive and affective) Bowden (2009)

Table 2
Merging conceptualisations of customer engagement.

Customer engagement with tourism brands Consumer brand engagement Consumer brand engagement
So et al. (2014) Dwivedi (2015) Hollebeek et al. (2014)

Dimension Definition Dimension Dimension Definition

Behavioural Interaction “Various participation (both
online and offline) that a
customer has with a brand
organization or other
customers outside of
purchase” (p.311)
Emotional Identification “The degree of a consumer's
perceived oneness with or
belongingness to the
brand” (p.311)
Cognitive Absorption “A pleasant state which
describes the customer as
being fully concentrated,
happy and deeply
engrossed while playing
the role as a consumer of
the brand” (p. 311)
Enthusiasm “The degree of excitement
and interest that a
consumer has in the brand”
(p. 311)
Attention “The degree of
attentiveness, focus and
connection that a consumer
has with a brand” (p. 311)
Vigor “Vigor denotes high levels
of energy and mental
resilience when interacting
with a brand, and the
consumer willingness and
the ability to invest effort in
such interactions” (p. 100)
Dedication “In the context of
consumer-brand
relationships … dedication
refers to a sense of
significance, enthusiasm,
inspiration, pride and
challenge” (p. 100)
Absorption “Absorption refers to the
sense of being fully
concentrated and happily
engrossed in brand
interactions and in which
time passes quickly” (p.
101)
Activation “A consumer's level of
energy, effort and time
spent on a brand in a
particular consumer/brand
interaction” (p. 154)
Affection “A consumer's degree of
positive brand-related
affect in a particular
consumer/brand
interaction” (p.154)
Cognitive Processing “A consumer's level of
brand-related thought
processing and elaboration
in a particular consumer-
brand interaction” (p. 154)

(Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Schaufeli, Salanova, Gonzalez-Roma, &
Bakker, 2002). Absorption is a positive trait, where customers will
be contently absorbed in or with the brand, most likely unaware of
how much time they are devoting to the brand (Patterson et al.,
2006; Scholer & Higgins, 2009).
2.1.4. Interaction
Interaction is fundamental to customer engagement, and in-
volves sharing and exchanging ideas, thoughts, and feelings about
experiences with the brand and other customers of the brand
(Vivek, 2009). Interaction between customers of the brand is sup-
ported by the brand community literature (e.g. Muniz & O'Guinn,
2001). This interaction, as well as direct brand interaction, is a
behavioural element of customer engagement.
2.1.5. Identification
Customers will identify more with certain brands over others,
particularly with those that match their self-image (Bagozzi &
Dholakia, 2006). This notion draws on social identity theory,
where individuals have both a personal identity and a social
identity. The groups one is a member of, in this context the
brands with which one engages, are a manifestation of the
brand's social identity function (Mael & Ashforth, 1992; Tajfel &
Turner, 1985).
These five dimensions of customer engagement are readily
applicable to tourism brands on social media. Where social media
are generally a powerful enabler of customer engagement, it fol-
lows that tourism social media brands like TripAdvisor, Booking.
com, Airbnb, and Lonely Planet will seek to inspire customer
engagement in each of the five dimensions. Following So et al.
(2014), we treat customer engagement as a second-order, reflec-
tive construct. Covin and Wales (2012, p. 682) note “in the reflective
measurement model the latent construct is modeled as producing
its measures.” This means that the five dimensions above are likely
to be caused by customer engagement, and to be inter-correlated
(Hair, Ringle, & Sarstedt, 2011).
600 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609
Fig. 1. Conceptual model of customer engagement. Note. The latent factor labels represent the following: INV ¼ customer involvement with a tourism social media brand;
CE ¼ customer engagement with a tourism social media brand; BIL ¼ behavioural intention of loyalty toward a tourism social media brand.
2.2. Customer engagement antecedents
As noted earlier in the paper, engagement is conceptually
different from involvement. Based on this premise, it may be that
involvement is an antecedent to customer engagement (Hollebeek
et al., 2014). This relationship was proposed by So et al. (2014) in
their conceptual model, that we test (Fig. 1).
Zaichkowsky (1994) defines customer involvement as a cus-
tomer's perceived relevance of an object (brand) based on their
needs, values, and interests. Zaichkowsky (1985, p. 342) states that
involvement is “independent of the behavior that results from
involvement” and reflects an object's relevance in meeting a cus-
tomer's value based needs. There are certain tourism brands on
social media that may elicit higher involvement than others may,
for different types of customers. For example, Airbnb's #mankind
campaign seeks to involve the consumer at a cognitive level
through focusing on positive news stories and the trust and kind-
ness aspect of opening one's home to strangers. Other sites like
Booking.com or TripAdvisor, may elicit involvement through
different strategies, such as ease of use, soliciting reviews, trans-
parency or social influence.
2.3. Customer engagement consequences
Building on So et al. (2014), we test the relationship proposed
between customer engagement and behavioural intention of loy-
alty (BIL), which is a widely used outcome variable. BIL, as oper-
ationalised by Zeithaml, Berry, and Parasuraman (1996), measures a
customer's intention to say positive things about a brand, to
recommend a brand generally and to friends, and to purchase this
brand in the near future. As illustrated in Fig. 1 customer involve-
ment with a tourism social media brand is an antecedent of
customer engagement; while customer's behavioural intention of
loyalty is a consequence of customer engagement.
It is important, theoretically and managerially, that customer
engagement is not treated as an outcome but rather a process that
leads to more measurable outcomes such as customer satisfaction
or loyalty. For example, Hudson et al. (2015) considered word-of-
mouth as an outcome in their research on social media interac-
tion. For engagement, there is evidence to support that it is a pre-
dictor of loyalty (Bowden, 2009; Hollebeek, 2011; Patterson et al.,
2006). For tourism social media brands, such as Lonely Planet,
Travelocity or Expedia, the relationship between engagement and
loyalty is essential. The fragmentation of the tourism market,
particularly online, has led to hyper-competition. In turn, this has
led to these brands using social media to try to increase customer
engagement, at cognitive, affective and behavioural levels, with the
principal aim of encouraging higher customer retention.
This paper contributes to tourism research, first, by validating a
customer engagement scale previously developed by So et al.
(2014). This scale consists of five dimensions, identification,
enthusiasm, attention, absorption, and interaction. We take these
dimensions, and the scale as whole, and test it in a social media
context among U.S. customers. Second, we develop a concise 11-
item version of the So et al. (2014) scale. Third, we examine the
behavioural loyalty intention as a consequence of customer
engagement (Bowden, 2009; Brodie, Hollebeek, Juri
c, & Ili

c, 2011;
De Villiers, 2015; De Vries & Carlson, 2014; Dwivedi, 2015;
Hollebeek, 2011; So et al., 2014). Fourth, we also examine
customer involvement as an antecedent to customer engagement
(Hollebeek et al., 2014; So et al., 2014).
3. Method
This study extends recent work by Evers, Harrigan, and Daly
(2015) and uses the dataset developed for that study. The data
were gathered from Amazon Mechanical Turk (MTurk) market-
place during the first half of 2015 using an online survey about
social media use in tourism-related decisions.
There were three constructs of interest. First, consumer
engagement with tourism brands was measured using the original
25- item So et al. (2014) CETB scale. This scale included five sub-
scales, namely (1) identification; (2) enthusiasm; (3) attention;
(4) absorption; and (5) interaction (items in Table 5). Second,
behavioural intention of loyalty was measured using the 4-item
Zeithaml et al. (1996) behavioural intention of loyalty (BIL) scale
(items reported in Table 3). Third, customer involvement was
measured using Zaichkowsky's (1994) 10-item scale (items re-
ported in Table 3). Finally, basic demographics were collected.
MTurk is Amazon's crowdsourcing employment website where
anonymous participants find and complete tasks (HITs) posted by
employers. Studies by Buhrmester, Kwang, and Gosling (2011) and
Paolacci, Chandler, and Ipeirotis (2010) found that MTurk users
were as representative of the population as online panels. In order
to reduce potential fatigue effects, the current survey was split into
two 15-min surveys. Using the method outlined by Daly and
Nataraajan (2015) the 300 respondents who completed the first
survey were invited to complete the second approximately two
weeks later. In total 195 respondents completed both surveys,
resulting in an attrition rate of 35%. Respondents were compen-
sated $1.50 per completed survey. A HIT0 was posted on MTurk to
invite individuals registered on the U.S.-based site to participate in
two surveys over two weeks. The survey was separated into two 15-
min phases due to length (Daly & Nataraajan, 2015). Respondents
were matched across both phases with 195 respondents completed
both survey phases (see Daly & Nataraajan, 2015). Three hundred
completed the first phase but not the second phase, resulting in an
attrition rate of 35%. Respondents were paid a monetary induce-
ment of $1.50 USD. Only respondents located in the United States
were eligible to complete the surveys (this was verified by IP geo-
location). Factor analysis of the customer engagement with tourism
brands scale and descriptive statistics were carried out using SPSS
(22.0) and the structural equation modeling in AMOS (22.0).
 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609 601

Table 3
Items used to measure behavioural intention of loyalty and customer involvement.

Items for consumer involvement (INV)

(Adapted from Zaichkowsky, 1994)
10 items presented on a 7-point semantic differential scale

Thinking about your favourite tourism site, please indicate your attitudes toward the site from the descriptive words below:
INV1 Important e Unimportant
INV2 Boring e Interesting
INV3 Relevant e Irrelevant
INV4 Exciting - Unexciting
INV5 Means nothing - Means a lot to me
INV6 Appealing - Unappealing
INV7 Fascinating - Mundane
INV8 Worthless e Valuable
INV9 Involving e Uninvolving
INV10 Not needed e Needed

Items for Behavioural Intention of Loyalty (BIL)

(adapted from Zeithaml et al., 1996)
4 items presented on a 7-point Likert scale (strongly disagree to strongly agree)

Thinking of your favourite tourism site, indicate the extent to which you agree or disagree with the following statements:
BIL1 I would say positive things about this tourism site to other people.
BIL2 I would recommend this tourism site to someone who seeks my advice.
BIL3 I would encourage friends and relatives to do business with this tourism site.
BIL4 I would do more business with this tourism site in the next few years.

Table 4
The regional dispersion of the sample compared with 2015 U.S. Census estimates.
Region % of sample in region % of U.S. households in regiona
Northeast 21.9% 17.5%
Midwest 19.9% 21.1%
West 15% 23.7%
South 43.4% 37.7%
a
www.census.gov/popclock/data_tables.php?component¼growth.
4. Results
It is not possible to estimate a response rate from a sampling
frame based on MTurk (Evers et al., 2015). The sample was split
evenly across the genders (50.8% male), and the average age of the
respondents was 36 years (SD ¼ 11). The majority of respondents
had completed university education (67.8%) and currently worked
outside of the home (70.3%); the average annual household income
bracket was $50,000-$59,999 (Evers et al., 2015). In addition, the
sample was also broadly representative of the regional geographic
dispersion of the U.S. population (Table 4). Importantly, 42 out of
the 50 U.S. states were represented in the final data set. Overall
these results suggest that the sampling should have limited expo-
sure to geo-demographic based biases.
Questions for involvement, engagement, and behavioural
intention of loyalty were answered in relation to respondents'
favourite tourism social media site; the top five favourite tourism
brand sites specified by respondents were TripAdvisor (29%,
n ¼ 56), Expedia (19%, n ¼ 37), Priceline (14%, n ¼ 27), Kayak (9%,
n ¼ 18), and Orbitz (9%, n ¼ 18). A one-way ANOVA confirmed that
there were no differences in the level of brand engagement across
the nominated tourism brands (F (13, 181) ¼ 1.370, p ¼ 0.178).
4.1. Study 1. the customer engagement with tourism brands (CETB)
factor structure
with one another (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007), and it can better
identify the ‘simple structure’ of factors (Finch, 2006). The data
satisfied the factor analysis assumptions; the Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin
measure of sampling adequacy was ideal at 0.951, and Bartlett's
test of sphericity was significant (c2 (300) ¼ 6048.58, p < 0.001).
Although So et al. (2014) proposed a five-factor structure, the cur-
rent analysis only supported four-factors (based on eigenvalues
greater than 1). Our subsequent analyses proceeded in three steps:
first, we present the analysis with five-factors as per So et al. (2014),
second we test a four-factor structure to better fit the data, and
third, following further analysis, we propose a three-factor 11-item
scale that best fits the data.
4.2. The five-factor CETB scale
We initially extracted five factors from the data, though the last
factor had an eigenvalue of only 0.701. The interaction factor alone
accounted for 61.6% of variance, while the remaining four factors
accounted for an additional 22% of variance. In total, the five factors
accounted for 83.8% of variation in the scale data.
The scale items loaded onto separate factors as indicated by the
original sub-scales. The loadings onto each factor ranged as follows:
identification (0.755-0.861), enthusiasm (0.544e1.015), attention
(0.695-0.935), absorption (0.505-0.869), and interaction (0.874-
0.981).
The analysis also supported the reliability and validity of the
original CETB scale. The reliability of all factor scales was examined
by internal consistency analyses; the Cronbach's alpha for inter-
action (0.977), absorption (0.934), enthusiasm (0.951), identifica-
tion (0.910), attention (0.951), and overall customer engagement
with brands (0.974) all indicated high internal consistency.
Maximum shared variance (MSV) and average shared squared
variance (ASV) were both lower than the average variance extrac-
ted (AVE) for all factors demonstrating discriminant validity of the
scale (Table 5).

To identify the underlying factor structure of So et al.'s (2014)
25-item customer engagement scale, data collected from 195 re-
spondents were subjected to exploratory factor analysis (maximum
likelihood estimation); oblique rotation (promax) was chosen over
orthogonal (varimax) because the factors were highly correlated
4.3. The four-factor CETB scale
As a result of our initial analysis, we re-ran the exploratory
factor analysis and extracted four factors from the data, each with
an eigenvalue greater than 1. In this four-factor model, all
602 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609

Table 5
Confirmatory factor analysis of the five-factor customer engagement with tourism brands scale (So et al., 2014).

Factor and item description Model and item indices

SL CR SMC AVE MSV ASV

Identification 0.913 0.725 0.546 0.451

ID1. When someone criticizes this tourism site, it feels like a personal insult. 0.804 0.647
ID2. When I talk about this tourism site, I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’. 0.826 0.683
ID3. This tourism site's successes are my successes. 0.895 0.801
ID4. When someone praises this tourism site, it feels like a personal compliment. 0.877 0.769
Enthusiasm 0.948 0.785 0.743 0.561
EN1. I am heavily into this tourism site. 0.907 0.822
EN2. I am passionate about this tourism site. 0.955 0.912
EN3. I am enthusiastic about this tourism site. 0.881 0.777
EN4. I feel excited about this tourism site. 0.913 0.833
EN5. I love this tourism site. 0.763 0.582
Attention 0.948 0.786 0.743 0.563
AT1. I like to learn more about this tourism site. 0.841 0.707
AT2. I pay a lot of attention to anything about this tourism site. 0.929 0.863
AT3. Anything related to this tourism site grabs my attention. 0.924 0.855
AT4. I concentrate a lot on this tourism site. 0.890 0.793
AT5. I like learning more about this tourism site. 0.844 0.712
Absorption 0.937 0.712 0.643 0.527
AB1. When I am interacting with the tourism site, I forget everything else around me. 0.802 0.644
AB2. Time flies when I am interacting with the tourism site. 0.896 0.804
AB3. When I am interacting with the tourism site, I get carried away. 0.866 0.750
AB4. When interacting with the tourism site, it is difficult to detach myself. 0.844 0.712
AB5. In my interaction with the tourism site, I am immersed. 0.872 0.760
AB6. When interacting with the tourism site intensely, I feel happy. 0.775 0.601
Interaction 0.977 0.893 0.487 0.436
INT1. In general, I like to get involved in the tourism site community discussions. 0.957 0.916
INT2. I am someone who enjoys interacting with like-minded others in the tourism site community. 0.948 0.899
INT3. I am someone who likes actively participating in the tourism site community discussions. 0.974 0.948
INT4. In general, I thoroughly enjoy exchanging ideas with other people in the tourism site community. 0.965 0.932
INT5. I often participate in activities of the tourism site community. 0.879 0.772

Note. c2 ¼ 407.410 (p < 0.001, df ¼ 252) c2/df ¼ 1.617; goodness-of-fit index (GFI) ¼ 0.857; adjusted GFI ¼ 0.816; comparative fit index (CFI) ¼ 0.974; normed fit index
(NFI) ¼ 0.936; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) ¼ 0.056; PCLOSE ¼ 0.147; SL ¼ standardised loadings; CR ¼ composite reliability; AVE ¼ average variance
extracted; SMC ¼ squared multiple correlation.

Table 6
Confirmatory factor analysis of the proposed four-factor 20-item customer engagement with tourism brands scale.

Factor and item description Model and item indices

SL CR SMC AVE MSV ASV

Identification 0.922 0.748 0.452 0.415

ID1. When someone criticizes this tourism site, it feels like a personal insult. 0.851 0.725
ID2. When I talk about this tourism site, I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’. 0.821 0.674
ID3. This tourism site's successes are my successes. 0.922 0.850
ID4. When someone praises this tourism site, it feels like a personal compliment. 0.862 0.744
Attraction 0.961 0.805 0.570 0.487
EN2. I am passionate about this tourism site. 0.928 0.861
EN3. I am enthusiastic about this tourism site. 0.896 0.803
EN4. I feel excited about this tourism site. 0.935 0.875
AT1. I like to learn more about this tourism site. 0.868 0.753
AT2. I pay a lot of attention to anything about this tourism site. 0.906 0.820
AT3. Anything related to this tourism site grabs my attention. 0.848 0.719
Absorption 0.932 0.734 0.570 0.487
AB1. When I am interacting with the tourism site, I forget everything else around me. 0.813 0.661
AB2. Time flies when I am interacting with the tourism site. 0.900 0.811
AB3. When I am interacting with the tourism site, I get carried away. 0.870 0.756
AB4. When interacting with the tourism site, it is difficult to detach myself. 0.836 0.700
AB5. In my interaction with the tourism site, I am immersed. 0.863 0.745
Interaction 0.977 0.893 0.480 0.433
INT1. In general, I like to get involved in the tourism site community discussions. 0.957 0.916
INT2. I am someone who enjoys interacting with like-minded others in the tourism site community. 0.948 0.900
INT3. I am someone who likes actively participating in the tourism site community discussions. 0.974 0.948
INT4. In general, I thoroughly enjoy exchanging ideas with other people in the tourism site community. 0.965 0.932
INT5. I often participate in activities of the tourism site community. 0.879 0.772

Note. c2 ¼ 194.834 (p ¼ 0.003, df ¼ 143) c2/df ¼ 1.362; goodness-of-fit index (GFI) ¼ 0.908; adjusted GFI ¼ 0.866; comparative fit index (CFI) ¼ 0.989; normed fit index
(NFI) ¼ 0.960; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) ¼ 0.043; PCLOSE ¼ 0.765; SL ¼ standardised loadings; CR ¼ composite reliability; AVE ¼ average variance
extracted; SMC ¼ squared multiple correlation.
 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609 603

Enthusiasm and Attention items, plus one Absorption item (AB6),
loaded onto the same factor. This result suggested that the Enthu-
siasm and Attention items measure the same underlying construct.
This factor was renamed ‘Attraction’ to better represent the mea-
surement items. The factor loadings for Attraction ranged from
0.504 to 1.02. The other five Absorption items (0.792-0.867) loaded
onto one factor as expected. All five Interaction items (0.879-0.991)
and all four Identification items (0.745-0.878) loaded onto separate
factors.
Five items (EN1, EN5, AT4, AT5, AB6) were removed from the
model based upon inspection of the standardised loadings and
model fit. The four factors of the 20-item scale accounted for a
cumulative 83.4% of variation in the data. Therefore, in terms of
explained variance, the 20-item CETB scale performs equally as well
as the original 25-item scale. The reduced 20-item CETB scale also
demonstrates good reliability and validity. The reliability of the four
factors individually and the scale as a whole were examined by
internal consistency analyses; the Cronbach's alpha for interaction
(0.977), absorption (0.931), identification (0.910), attraction
(0.952), and overall customer engagement with brands (0.967) all
indicated high internal consistency. A confirmatory factor analysis
was conducted in AMOS to examine the validity of the scale.
Convergent validity was demonstrated by the average variance
extracted (AVE) exceeding 0.5 for all constructs (Fornell & Larcker,
1981; Hair, Black, Babin, & Anderson, 2010). Further, the maximum
shared variance (MSV) and average shared squared variance (ASV)
were both lower than the AVE for all factors demonstrating
discriminant validity of the scale (Gaskin, 2016; Hair et al., 2010)
(Table 6).
4.4. The three-factor CETB scale
High inter-item correlations in the 20-item scale suggested
potential item redundancy, and the factor loadings pointed to an
overlap, whereby some items were loading onto multiple factors
(see Streiner, 2003). We therefore removed the highly correlated
items (ID3, EN3, AT1, AT2, AB2, AB3, AB4, INT3, INT4) to reduce
redundancy and move toward a more parsimonious version of the
CETB scale. We re-ran the factor analysis on the remaining 11 items
and discovered that the items were loading onto three factors.
Identification and Interaction remained independent factors, while
the items from the CETB's three factors Absorption, Enthusiasm,
and Attention all collapsed into one factor measuring a single
construct - Absorption. The three factors of the 11-item scale
accounted for a cumulative 80.5% of variation in the data,
explaining almost as much variance in the data as the original 25-
item scale. The 11-item CETB scale also demonstrated reliability and
validity. The Cronbach's alpha for interaction (0.948), absorption
(0.906), identification (0.869), and overall customer engagement
with brands (0.936) all indicated high internal consistency. Lastly, a
confirmatory factor analysis examined the validity of the scale.
Convergent validity was demonstrated by the average variance
extracted (AVE) exceeding 0.5 for all constructs (Fornell & Larcker,
1981; Hair et al., 2010) and discriminant validity was shown as the
maximum shared variance (MSV) and average shared squared
variance (ASV) were both lower than the AVE for all factors (Gaskin,
2016; Hair et al., 2010) (Table 7).
4.5. Study 2: an antecedent and consequence of customer
engagement
We tested the predictive validity of the five-factor CE scale with
a structural model, placing a path from CE to BIL (Fig. 2). The fit
indices suggested that the model fit the data fairly well; (c2
(346) ¼ 559.375, p < 0.001), c2/df ¼ 1.617, GFI ¼ 0.829;
AGFI ¼ 0.785; CFI ¼ 0.968; NFI ¼ 0.922; RMSEA ¼ 0.056;
PCLOSE ¼ 0.111. The results suggest that original 25-item CETB scale
is a significant predictor of BIL (b ¼ 0.648, CR ¼ 7.668, p < 0.001)
and explained 42% of the variance in BIL.
We tested the predictive validity of the 20-item CETB scale with
a structural model, placing a path from CE to BIL (Fig. 3). The fit
indices suggested that the model fit the data well; (c2
(224) ¼ 323.499, p < 0.001), c2/df ¼ 1.444, GFI ¼ 0.874;
AGFI ¼ 0.832; CFI ¼ 0.982; NFI ¼ 0.943; RMSEA ¼ 0.048;
PCLOSE ¼ 0.611. The results suggest that the four-factor CE scale is a
significant predictor of BIL (b ¼ 0.625, CR ¼ 7.493, p < 0.001) and
explained 39% of the variance in BIL.
The final examination was of the predictive ability of the 11-item
three-factor CETB scale. As with the previous two structural
models, we tested the three-factor model by placing a path from CE
to BIL (Fig. 4). The fit indices suggested that the model fit the data
moderately well; (c2 (82) ¼ 172.101, p < 0.001), c2/df ¼ 2.10,
GFI ¼ 0.890; AGFI ¼ 0.839; CFI ¼ 0.965; NFI ¼ 0.935;
RMSEA ¼ 0.075; PCLOSE ¼ 0.005. The results suggest that the
three-factor CE scale is a significant predictor of BIL (b ¼ 0.635,
CR ¼ 7.364, p < 0.001) and explained 40% of the variance in BIL.

Table 7
Confirmatory factor analysis of the proposed three-factor 11-item customer engagement with tourism brands scale.

Factor and item description Model and item indices

SL CR SMC AVE MSV ASV

Identification 0.874 0.697 0.569 0.501

ID1. When someone criticizes this tourism site, it feels like a personal insult. 0.832 0.696
ID2. When I talk about this tourism site, I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’. 0.809 0.640
ID4. When someone praises this tourism site, it feels like a personal compliment. 0.878 0.757
Absorption 0.906 0.663 0.569 0.530
EN2. I am passionate about this tourism site. 0.920 0.850
EN4. I feel excited about this tourism site. 0.930 0.843
AT3. Anything related to this tourism site grabs my attention. 0.858 0.712
AB1. When I am interacting with the tourism site, I forget everything else around me. 0.642 0.436
AB5. In my interaction with the tourism site, I am immersed. 0.675 0.472
Interaction 0.948 0.860 0.491 0.462
INT1. In general, I like to get involved in the tourism site community discussions. 0.949 0.904
INT2. I am someone who enjoys interacting with like-minded others in the tourism site community. 0.956 0.909
INT5. I often participate in activities of the tourism site community. 0.874 0.767

Note. c2 ¼ 172.101 (p ¼ 0.000, df ¼ 82) c2/df ¼ 2.10; goodness-of-fit index (GFI) ¼ 0.890; adjusted GFI ¼ 0.839; comparative fit index (CFI) ¼ 0.965; normed fit index
(NFI) ¼ 0.935; root mean square error of approximation (RMSEA) ¼ 0.075; PCLOSE ¼ 0.005; SL ¼ standardised loadings; CR ¼ composite reliability; AVE ¼ average variance
extracted; SMC ¼ squared multiple correlation.
604 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609

Fig. 2. The five-factor model of CE structural model with behavioural intention of loyalty. Note. The latent factor labels represent the following: INT ¼ interaction; AB ¼ absorption;
EN ¼ enthusiasm; ID ¼ identification; AT ¼ attention; CE ¼ customer engagement; BIL ¼ behavioural intention of loyalty.

4.6. A test of the conceptual model
Finally, we examined the initial conceptual model, where
customer involvement predicts customer engagement, which in
turn, predicts behavioural intentions of loyalty. We tested the
predictive validity of the proposed three-factor 11-item CETB scale
with a structural model, placing paths from INV to CE and CE to BIL
(Fig. 4). The fit indices suggested that the model fit the data
moderately well; (c2 (248) ¼ 390.581, p < 0.001), c2/df ¼ 1.575,
GFI ¼ 0.859; AGFI ¼ 0.815; CFI ¼ 0.962; NFI ¼ 0.903;
RMSEA ¼ 0.054; PCLOSE ¼ 0.234. The results suggest that customer
involvement can predict customer engagement (b ¼ 0.694,
CR ¼ 6.781, p < 0.001), accounting for 48% of the variance in CE.
Importantly, the three-factor CE scale remained a significant pre-
dictor of BIL (b ¼ 0.663, CR ¼ 7.505, p < 0.001) and explained 44% of
the variance in BIL when testing the relationship between customer
involvement, customer engagement and loyalty proposed in So
et al.'s (2014) nomological framework (see Fig. 5).
5. Discussion
The first objective of our research was to examine and validate
the CETB scale proposed by So et al. (2014). The initial analyses
found that the original scale has four instead of five underlying
factors. In this phase of our study, the original items for the factors
Enthusiasm and Attention loaded together onto the same factor.
Therefore, for So et al.'s (2014) original CETB scale it is proposed
these factors be merged into one factor named Attraction. The
results demonstrate that the proposed four-factor, twenty-item
scale has better structural model fit than the original five-factor
 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609 605

Fig. 3. The four-factor model of CE structural model with behavioural intention of loyalty, Note. The latent factor labels represent the following: ID ¼ identification; ATT ¼ attraction;
AB ¼ absorption; INT ¼ interaction; CE ¼ customer engagement; BIL ¼ behavioural intention of loyalty.

twenty-five-item scale (So et al., 2014). In addition, the 20-item
four-factor scale demonstrated a similar ability to predict the
behavioural intention of loyalty. However, additional analysis
revealed high inter-item correlations in the four-factor, twenty-
item scale that suggested item redundancy (Streiner, 2003).
Highly correlated items were removed from the twenty-item
scale. This resulted in a psychometrically sound three-factor,
eleven-item scale that is more parsimonious and better fits the
data. This finding has implications for future research into
customer engagement with tourism brands.
Empirically, the results strongly support the 11-item reduced
scale. Conceptually, the collapsing of Enthusiasm and Attention into
Absorption is supported by considering Hollebeek's et al.’s (2014, p.
160) “attitudinal CBE factors”. These three factors map against
Hollebeek's et al.'s (2014) factors of cognitive processing and
affection, which they label attitudinal. Looking beyond the defini-
tions into the items, and thus what the constructs are measuring,
we can see that there is also conceptual argument for construct
validity. Absorption is described as “(a) pleasant state with which
describes the customer as being fully concentrated, happy, and
deeply engrossed while playing the role as a consumer of the
brand,” (So et al. 2014, p. 311) which involves customer passion
with, excitement about, and attraction to the tourism site. In this
way, absorption encompasses enthusiasm and attention.
This leads to the second objective of this research, which was to
investigate the nature of customer engagement within So et al.'s
(2014) proposed nomological framework. Specifically, with
customer involvement as an antecedent and behavioural intention
of loyalty as a consequence. Providing empirical support for So
et al.'s (2014) nomological framework, the current research finds
that customer engagement is a predictor of brand loyalty using the
11-item CETB scale. This is a relationship proposed by many other
researchers (e.g. De Villiers, 2015; De Vries & Carlson, 2014;
Dwivedi, 2015; Hollebeek, 2011; Hollebeek et al., 2014; Vivek
et al., 2012). The findings also build on Hudson et al.'s (2015) par-
allel work on the effects of social media interaction on word-of-
mouth, which did not explicitly consider the role of customer
engagement.
The finding that involvement is a predictor of engagement with
tourism brands on social media is important. Brands must use so-
cial media, among other channels, to elicit involvement with their
brand if they seek to engage with consumers effectively. Involve-
ment is characterised, for example, by the brand's level of appeal,
meaning, and value to customers (Zaichkowsky, 1994). By placing
606 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609

Fig. 4. The proposed three-factor model of CE structural model with behavioural intention of loyalty. Note. The latent factor labels represent the following: ID ¼ identification;
AB ¼ absorption; INT ¼ interaction; CE ¼ customer engagement; BIL ¼ behavioural intention of loyalty.

r2=.48 r2=.44
.69 .66
INV CE BIL

Note. The latent factor labels represent the following: INV = customer involvement; CE = customer
engagement; BIL = behavioural intention of loyalty; the 11-item scale was used to measure CE.

Fig. 5. The relationship between customer involvement, engagement and loyalty. Note. The latent factor labels represent the following: INV ¼ customer involvement;
CE ¼ customer engagement; BIL ¼ behavioural intention of loyalty; the 11-item scale was used to measure CE.

and testing customer engagement as part of So et al.'s (2014) work by Cabiddu et al. (2014) on how organizations engage with
nomological framework, we emphasise its interdependence on customers by articulating how customers engage with the organi-
existing constructs. zation's brands. Another key question is around the outcomes of
customer engagement. This paper has addressed these questions
with two specific contributions. First, we validate and revise a
6. Conclusion and implications
customer engagement scale developed by So et al. (2014) specif-
ically for the tourism sector. We applied this scale to tourism brands
This research contributes to tourism research, first, by validating
on social media. Second, we place customer engagement within a
a customer engagement scale previously developed by So et al.
meaningful nomological framework for researchers and practi-
(2014). The original scale consists of five dimensions, identifica-
tioners, where customer involvement leads to customer engage-
tion, enthusiasm, attention, absorption, and interaction. We take
ment, which in turn leads to brand loyalty.
these dimensions, and the scale as whole, and test it in a social
The multi-dimensionality of customer engagement is confirmed
media context among U.S. customers. Second, we offer a psycho-
by our analysis. We find there to be three dimensions of customer
metrically sound, parsimonious 11-item version of the CETB. Third,
engagement in the 11-item scale that can be used for future
we examine the behavioural loyalty intention as a consequence of
research within and beyond the tourism sector. These dimensions
customer engagement (Bowden, 2009; Brodie et al., 2011; De
are Absorption, Identification and Interaction. Previous research,
Villiers, 2015; De Vries & Carlson, 2014; Dwivedi, 2015;
notably by Dwivedi (2015) and Hollebeek et al. (2014), has similarly
Hollebeek, 2011; So et al. 2014). Fourth, we examine customer
conceptualised and operationalised dimensions of customer
involvement as an antecedent to customer engagement (Hollebeek
engagement. This research builds on So et al. (2014) and provides a
et al., 2014; So et al., 2014).
conceptualisation of customer engagement, operationalised in the
Customer engagement is an area of significant theoretical and
tourism sector.
practical relevance. How brands can utilise social media to increase
This study's theoretical contributions include: (1) the develop-
engagement among their customers is a key question in the hyper-
ment of a parsimonious 11-item customer engagement scale that
competitive tourism sector. This research extends the excellent
 P. Harrigan et al. / Tourism Management 59 (2017) 597e609 607

can be taken and tested in other tourism or non-tourism contexts;
and (2) an empirically tested nomological framework that places
customer engagement as a consequence of involvement and as an
antecedent of behavioural intention of loyalty that can be applied to
and assessed in other tourism or non-tourism contexts. The focus
on tourism brands on social media is an important contribution
that adds theoretical weight to the social media marketing litera-
ture. Although the tourism sector is unique, findings may be
applied to other sectors. We believe social exchange theory is an
appropriate theoretical underpinning for customer engagement
research, no matter the sector. It is clear that exchange between
consumer and marketer is essential for consumers to identify with,
absorb themselves in, and interact with brands.
Managerially, tourism brand managers using social media will
be able to better understand and shape the nature of customer
engagement and the nuances of its dimensions using a concise 11-
item CETB scale. Social media is the ideal channel through which to
inspire customers' absorption, identification and interaction with a
brand. However, these are complex cognitive, affective and
behavioural components. Brands must understand how to effec-
tively use various functions of social media, such as pictures, videos,
polls, reviews, comments, blogs, all of which can be both marketer-
and user-generated, to foster these three different dimensions of
engagement with their brand over another. For example, brands
can provide entertaining or educational content through blogs to
absorb customers. Through these activities and others, brands can
develop a unique image on social media that can enable customers
to identify with their brand over others. A final example would be
brands that provide honest and transparent responses to customer
reviews can experience positive interaction with their customers.
Managers must also understand the ecosystem within which
customer engagement exists and functions. We have illustrated
that involvement is an antecedent to customer engagement, which
means that brand managers are particularly responsible for
importance of, one, being on social media, and two, developing
strategies for customer engagement on social media.
There are limitations to the research, which can be mitigated by
future research. For example, this study is based on one-country
(the U.S.) non-random sample and therefore the findings cannot
be generalized beyond the sample. Future research should validate
the customer engagement scale and model using random samples
in countries with varying cultures. A second, related point is that
the United States itself is extremely large and diverse both from a
tourism accessibility perspective and overall with state and
regional cultural differences. It is potentially important to investi-
gate if the results reported in this research vary depending on state
or regional comparisons. As discussed in the results, the sample of
this study is broadly representative of the major U.S. regions e
however the sample size is not large enough to do this fine-grained
intra-national investigation. Third, we looked at the most popular
tourism brands on social media. It would be useful for future
research to assess the scale and model on other brands' social
media, such as tourism organizations (e.g. Tourism Australia,
Discover America), major attractions, and small and large hotels.
Funding
This research was funded by a BHP Billiton Distinguished
Research Award.
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data related to this article can be found at http://
dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.09.015.
Appendix

Consumer engagement with tourism brand items N Mean SD Skewness Kurtosis

ID1. CBE - Identification -When someone criticizes this tourism site, it feels like a personal insult. 195 1.72 1.225 2.108 4.519
ID2. CBE - Identification -When I talk about this tourism site, I usually say ‘we’ rather than ‘they’. 195 1.63 1.166 2.463 6.450
ID3. CBE - Identification -This tourism site's successes are my successes. 195 1.79 1.308 1.769 2.412
ID4. CBE - Identification -When someone praises this tourism site, it feels like a personal compliment. 195 2.02 1.489 1.452 1.220
EN1. CBE - Enthusiasm -I am heavily into this tourism site. 195 2.73 1.717 0.612 -0.785
EN2. CBE - Enthusiasm -I am passionate about this tourism site. 195 2.79 1.709 0.608 -0.680
EN3. CBE - Enthusiasm -I am enthusiastic about this tourism site. 195 3.36 1.938 0.160 1.326
EN4. CBE - Enthusiasm -I feel excited about this tourism site. 195 3.31 1.934 0.248 1.213
EN5. CBE - Enthusiasm -I love this tourism site. 195 4.09 1.747 -0.254 -0.720
AT1. CBE - Attention -I like to learn more about this tourism site. 195 3.96 1.870 -0.210 1.066
AT2. CBE - Attention -I pay a lot of attention to anything about this tourism site. 195 3.55 1.845 0.111 1.144
AT3. CBE - Attention -Anything related to this tourism site grabs my attention. 195 3.31 1.827 0.264 1.094
AT4. CBE - Attention -I concentrate a lot on this tourism site. 195 3.32 1.765 0.143 1.027
AT5. CBE - Attention -I like learning more about this tourism site. 195 3.77 1.816 -0.155 -0.999
AB1. CBE - Absorption -When I am interacting with the tourism site, I forget everything else around me. 195 2.89 1.755 0.573 -0.790
AB2. CBE - Absorption -Time flies when I am interacting with the tourism site. 195 3.51 1.898 0.155 1.149
AB3. CBE - Absorption -When I am interacting with the tourism site, I get carried away. 195 3.00 1.830 0.418 1.171
AB4. CBE - Absorption -When interacting with the tourism site, it is difficult to detach myself. 195 2.45 1.557 0.892 -0.138
AB5. CBE - Absorption -In my interaction with the tourism site, I am immersed. 195 3.24 1.790 0.122 1.234
AB6. CBE - Absorption -When interacting with the tourism site intensely, I feel happy. 195 3.73 1.720 -0.267 -0.983
INT1. CBE - Interaction -In general, I like to get involved in the tourism site community discussions. 195 2.58 1.775 0.851 -0.451
INT2. CBE - Interaction -I am someone who enjoys interacting with like-minded others in the tourism site community. 195 2.81 1.856 0.584 1.026
INT3. CBE - Interaction -I am someone who likes actively participating in the tourism site community discussions. 195 2.64 1.851 0.868 -0.484
INT4. CBE - Interaction -In general, I thoroughly enjoy exchanging ideas with other people in the tourism site community. 195 2.76 1.852 0.732 -0.680
INT5. CBE - Interaction -I often participate in activities of the tourism site community. 195 2.46 1.750 1.046 -0.070

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Dr. Paul Harrigan has been at UWA since July 2012.
Before this, he was a Lecturer in Marketing at the Uni-
versity of Southampton in the UK from 2008 to 2012.
PhD, from the University of Ulster in 2008, looked at
customer relationship management (CRM) in SMEs. His
current research interests lie in CRM, spanning the
marketing and information systems literature. Social
media is my specific expertise, with current projects
looking at social CRM (i.e. the impact of social media on
CRM) from business and consumer perspectives. He has
published in journals such as the International Journal of
Electronic Commerce, the Journal of Marketing Manage-
ment, the Journal of Strategic Marketing and the Journal of
Marketing Education and has close engagement with in-
dustry and marketing practitioners.
Uwana Evers is a Research Fellow and Lecturer in Marketing
at the UWA Business School, University of Western Australia.
She is a BPS Chartered Psychologist, has a PhD in Psychology
from the University of Wollongong and has worked at the
University College London. Uwana currently teaches under-
graduate Marketing Research, and has published and pre-
sented research in social marketing, behaviour change,
personal values, and cross-cultural psychology.
609
Professor Morgan P. Miles is Miles is Professor of
Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of
Canterbury, Previously he had been the Tom Hendrix
Chair of Excellence at the University of Tennessee Mar-
tin, Professor of Enterprise Development at the Univer-
sity of Tasmania, and Professor of Marketing at Georgia
Southern University. He has been a visiting scholar at
Georgia Tech, Cambridge University, University of
Stockholm, the University of Otago, University of Auck-
land, and an Erskine Fellow at the University of Canter-
bury. He holds a D.B.A. in marketing from Mississippi
State University.
Dr. Timothy Daly is Assistant Professor at United Arab
Emirates University. Dr Daly graduated in 2010 from the
University of Western Australia with a PhD in Marketing.
Since then he has worked as an Assistant Professor at the
University of Akron, Ohio (USA), the University of
Western Australian and United Arab Emirates University.
He currently teaches Consumer Behavior.