Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530

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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jhtm

Speech VS. Writing: The influences of WOM communication on tourism

experience storytellers
Shujie Fang a, Yaoqi Li b, *, Chun Zhang c, Lulu Ye b
a
School of Management, Zhengzhou University, 100 Science Avenue, Zhengzhou, 450001, China
b
School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-sen University, 135 Xingang West Road, Guangzhou, 510275, China
c
Department of Management and Marketing, University of Dayton, 300 College Park, Dayton, OH, 45402, USA

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Word of mouth is the most important source of information for consumption decisions, which has become a
Word-of-mouth communication powerful marketing tool and competitive advantage in the tourism industry. Word-of-mouth communication
Oral communication could be mainly categorized into speech/oral communication and writing/written communication. Although the
Written communication
categorization has attracted much attention in the literature, little research has systematically investigated the
Tourism experience storytellers
Self-brand connection
differences between these two communication types and their effectiveness from the perspective of WOM
Tourism experience type communicators, that is tourism experience storytellers. To fill the gap, this study conducted three studies by
utilizing the experimental method. Results show that oral communication exerts more positive impacts on
tourism experience storytellers than written communication. Such an effect works through the mediator of self-
brand connection. Moreover, this effect is contingent on the tourism experience type (hedonic vs. utilitarian),
which only holds in the condition of a hedonic tourism experience. This study contributes to providing a
comprehensive understanding of the impacts of word-of-mouth communication (oral vs. written) from the
perspective of communicators. Practical implications and limitations are also discussed.

1. Introduction competitive advantage, it has gained increasingly more recognition from

Word-of-mouth (WOM) is the most important source of information
for consumption decisions (Bartschat et al., 2022; Sun et al., 2021; Wu,
Tong, et al., 2022). Along with the development of internet technology,
word-of-mouse has emerged as a new type of WOM. Distinct from
face-to-face WOM, word-of-mouse has richer sources, larger volumes,
and more personalized content, which is highly social and bears strong
communication ability among thousands of strangers. In summary,
WOM communication is believed to have more potential impacts than
any other communication channel (Godes & Mayzlin, 2004; Sharma
et al., 2020). Especially, in tourism, potential tourists might make travel
decisions based on the recommendations of their friends and/or fam­
ilies. In recent years, tourists are also inclined to check the comments
and posts on social media platforms (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, WeChat,
etc.) and online travel agencies (e.g. TripAdvisor, Airbnb, and Ctrip).
Hence, how to manage the emerging and traditional WOM communi­
cation types in the internet era is critically important for tourism
practitioners.
Because of the importance of WOM in both marketing strategy and
academics. Scholarly efforts have been taken to better understand WOM
communication types in the extant literature. WOM communication
could be classified into speech/oral communication and writing/written
communication (Berger, 2014; Berger et al., 2021). Berger et al. (2021)
suggested that oral communication leads to a more favorable attitude of
the recipients towards the restaurant than written communication; Chen
et al. (2018) found that oral communication exerts stronger impacts on
healthcare-seeking behaviors than written communication. Eisingerich
et al. (2015) presented that oral communication brings fewer social risks
to communicators than written communication. Lee and Oh (2017)
showed that tourists’ story-sharing activities influence their
post-purchase behavior, and this effect is contingent on different
communication conditions. More specifically, their studies indicated
that tourists’ experiential purchases have a more positive effect on their
post-purchase behavioral outcomes than material purchases and this
effect only holds in the condition of oral communication.
As indicated above, the majority of the WOM literature has been
focused on the impacts of WOM on the communication receivers, such as
receivers’ purchase intention (e.g. Berger et al., 2021; Filieri et al., 2018;

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: fangshj6@zzu.edu.cn (S. Fang), liyaoqi3@mail.sysu.edu.cn (Y. Li), czhang4@udayton.edu (C. Zhang), yellu1210@163.com (L. Ye).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jhtm.2023.02.015
Received 11 August 2022; Received in revised form 20 February 2023; Accepted 22 February 2023
Available online 28 February 2023
1447-6770/© 2023 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. on behalf of CAUTHE - COUNCIL FOR AUSTRALASIAN TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY EDUCATION. All
rights reserved.
S. Fang et al.
Liao et al., 2021), food waste reduction (Olavarria-Key et al., 2021) and
destination image (e.g. Camprubí et al., 2013; de Lima et al., 2020), less
attention has been devoted to the effects of WOM communication on the
WOM communication senders themselves. Even though several scholars
have studied the relationship between the communication types of
WOM and brand performance (e.g. Shen & Sengupta, 2018), little is
known about how WOM communication influences communicators
themselves’ behavioral intention (e.g. recommendation and repurchase
intention). For instance, the current literature cannot tell us whether a
consumer will be more likely to recommend the brand after carrying out
a certain type of WOM communication. We also don’t know whether
adopting a certain type of WOM communication will increase the
communicator’s intention of buying the brand again in the future more
than other WOM communication types. Moreover, the extant literature
focuses on the online WOM (e.g. Jang et al., 2022; Mao & Lyu, 2017; Yan
et al., 2018) and the antecedents of this particular WOM (e.g. Eelen
et al., 2017; Oraedu et al., 2020; Siqueira Jr et al., 2019; Tan & Lin,
2021), academic efforts have fallen short of understanding the differ­
ence between the communication types of WOM (oral vs. written
communication) and their effectiveness. Overall, the extant literature
has not been able to answer the questions of which and how WOM
communication type (oral versus written communication) exerts more
impact on tourism experience storytellers’ behavioral intention
(recommendation and repurchase intentions) from the perspective of
communicators and how that impact happens.
In this vein, the current study attempts to contribute to fulfilling
these gaps and aims (i) to investigate the impacts of two main WOM
communication types from the lens of tourism experience storytellers
(WOM communicators, contrast to the WOM listeners), (ii) to explore
the mechanism of how WOM communication types influence tourism
experience storytellers’ behavioral intention, and (iii) to examine the
moderating effect of tourism experience type on the relationship be­
tween WOM communication types and tourism experience storytellers’
behavioral intention. The results will provide insights for tourism
managers with the means to better manage and cater to tourists’
communication types of WOM and form marketing strategies to enhance
the relationship between WOM communicators and the tourism brand.
2. Literature review and hypothesis development
2.1. Word-of-mouth communication
Word-of-mouth refers to interpersonal and informal communication,
which is directed at other consumers about the ownership, usage, or
characteristics of particular goods, services and their sellers (Berger,
2014, p. 587). Traditionally, WOM is often done through face-to-face,
which is also characterized as one-on-one speaking conversation.
While nontraditionally, it can be told via one-to-many written online
reviews. Word-of-mouth communication can be therefore categorized as
two types/channels: speech/oral communication and writing/written
communication (Berger, 2014; Eisingerich et al., 2015; Moore, 2012).
The former type depicts customers sharing their experiences, opinions,
and ideas with other customers through speaking. The latter charac­
terizes customers’ sharing by writing on social media or online shopping
platforms. The current research mainly focuses on these two WOM
communication types.
The two WOM communication types have gained scholarly attention
recently (Bartschat et al., 2022). Several pieces of research have re­
ported the distinction between oral and written communication (e.g.
Berger, 2014; Eisingerich et al., 2015). Berger (2014) summarized the
five drivers of WOM, which are impression management, emotion
regulation, information acquisition, social bonding, and persuasion.
More importantly, Berger (2014) believed that communication channels
moderate consumers’ motivations to spread WOM. Communication
channels differ in their synchronicity: oral communication tends to be
rather synchronous, with little break in between conversational turns,
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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530
whereas written communication is more asynchronous and customers
tend to respond minutes, hours, or even days later (Berger, 2014). As
such, written communication’s asynchrony would encourage impression
management, facilitate persuasion and collect more useful information,
while oral communication’s synchrony would facilitate emotion regu­
lation and social bonding (Berger, 2014; Qiu et al., 2022). Eisingerich
et al. (2015) analyzed the difference between written and oral
communication and found that consumers are less willing to engage in
written communication than oral communication. Furthermore, they
concluded that such a difference was caused by the social risk associated
with different communication channels (Wu, Tong, et al., 2022).
BabićRosario et al. (2020) suggest that the format of WOM affects in­
formation processing and adoption.
Recently, the extant literature mainly focuses on the differences in
the impacts these two communication channels exert. As noted by
Moore (2012), prior studies focused much on the impacts of WOM
communication type on communication recipients and firms. Moore
(2012), instead, in her study, examined the impacts of the linguistic
content of written communication on the communicators, including
communicators’ intentions to repeat, recommend, and retell stories
about their experiences. Shen and Sengupta (2018) examined how two
different communication channels (oral vs. written communication)
influenced the communicator’s reactions to a liked brand. Their results
showed that oral communication involves a greater focus on social
interaction with the communication recipient than written communi­
cation. They also found that oral communicators are more likely to ex­
press self-related thoughts than writers, thereby increasing their
self-brand connection. Berger et al. (2021) showed that communica­
tors’ writing leads consumers to express fewer emotions than speaking
and such an effect is driven by deliberation. Besides, writing reduces
recipients’ attitudes toward the communication target.
In summary, the previous studies have different findings on the
effectiveness of WOM communication type. Further, there is a lack of a
full understanding of the impacts that different communication channels
bring on communicators themselves. In the present study, the authors
extend the extant literature by testifying to the impacts of two
communication channels (speech vs. writing), a main category of WOM,
on tourism experience storytellers’ responses. In addition, the present
study will examine the mechanism of the two different communication
channels’ (speech vs. writing) impacts and their boundary conditions.
2.2. The effect of communication type on tourists’ responses
As elaborated in the previous section, prior studies have emphasized
the distinctions between oral and written communication. For instance,
Berger (2014) illustrated that oral and written communication differs in
their synchronicity. Written communication allows time to construct the
contents conveyed to the listeners. Instead, oral communication occurs
without much thinking but with the first and real thoughts. Similarly,
Shen and Sengupta (2018) argued that speech emphasizes more on in­
teractions between the communicator and the receiver. In addition, oral
communicators are more likely to express self-related thoughts than
written communicators. In summary, the studies above indicated that
oral communication makes a communicator feel more related than
written communication and would therefore enhance communicators’
positive responses to the firms/brands (e.g., recommendation intention
and repurchase intention). Eisingerich et al. (2015) provided explana­
tions for the positive responses that oral communication elicits. They
suggested that customers who share through written online reviews
were less inclined to provide positive WOM than traditional face-to-face
WOM. The authors found that such a difference was induced by the
social risk associated with the two communication types, as customers
perceive a higher social risk for sharing stories through online social
sites in which one’s reputation is built and maintained, and could be
consequently damaged.
In this study, tourism experience storytellers’ responses mainly
S. Fang et al.
involves tourists’ behavioral intention (e.g. recommendation and
repurchase intention) that is produced after tourists sharing their con­
sumption experience. Because in previous studies, scholars often utilized
customers’ behavioral intentions to measure the benefits brought to the
firms/brands (e.g. Al-Ansi et al., 2019; Lee & Oh, 2017; Liu et al., 2022;
Mao & Lyu, 2017). Overall, we could therefore infer that tourists would
generate more recommendations and higher repurchase intentions
through oral communication than written communication. Specifically,
tourists who share their consumption experience through speech would
be more likely to recommend the tourism brand to others and purchase
the brand again than through writing.
Based on the literature review above, we argue that oral communi­
cation will lead to more positive responses (recommendation and
repurchase intention) from message-sending communicators than writ­
ten communication. The following hypothesis is therefore proposed.
H1. Compared to written communication, oral communication will
enhance tourism experience storytellers’ responses (recommendation
intention, H1a; repurchase intention, H1b).
2.3. The mediating role of self-brand connection
The self-brand connection can be described as the extent to which
individuals have incorporated brands into their self-concept (Escalas,
2004). When tourists share their travel experiences, they will inevitably
mention related tourism brands, products, and services (Li et al., 2019).
In this process, tourists often use their favored brands and products to
establish, maintain, and signal self-concept (Escalas, 2004; Shen &
Sengupta, 2018). Studies implied that tourists engaging in WOM about
their tourism consumption experiences are more likely to express their
self-concepts and attract attention (Saenger et al., 2013). Thus, in the
process of sharing personal travel experiences, the link between the
brand and the tourist’s self-concept is strengthened. That is, the tourist’s
self-brand connection is reinforced (Moore & Homer, 2008). Thus,
narrating a personal travel experience is a process of self-expression that
could enhance tourists’ self-brand connection, regardless of the format
of communication.
However, the degree to which tourists communicate their self-
concept to others by using brands affects the strength of the self-brand
connection. The self-brand connection will be stronger when the
communicator involves greater self-expression during the spread of
word-of-mouth (Shen & Sengupta, 2018). Most importantly, scholars
have proven, by comparing oral versus written communication, that
speakers use more personal pronouns, and self-related thoughts such as
expressions of personal opinion and experiences in oral communication
(DeVito, 1966; Einhorn, 1978; Li et al., 2019; Shen & Sengupta, 2018;
Tannen, 1985). Because of the self-related thoughts, customers exert a
stronger connection with the brand through oral communication than
through written communication (Shen & Sengupta, 2018). Therefore, in
the context of tourism, tourists are more likely to discuss their personal
travel experiences and convey more self-related positive opinions about
the brand through oral communication, whereas others who share
through online writing tend to be relatively objective and rational in
brand communication (Shen & Sengupta, 2018). To be concluded,
greater self-expression is entailed and a stronger self-brand connection is
produced in speech compared to writing.
A strong self-brand connection reflects the close relationship be­
tween a tourist and a brand (Swaminathan et al., 2007), which is
beneficial to the brand in many aspects. It includes not only emotional
investment like brand attitude (Cheng et al., 2012) and brand love (Le,
2021) but also positive behavioral tourist response. Due to an increased
desire for self-concept expression in a stronger self-brand connection,
tourists are motivated to acquire products or services as signs and
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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530
symbols (Moliner et al., 2018; Schembri et al., 2010). What’s more,
because a strongly connected brand is part of an individual’s
self-concept and self-identity, tourists will maintain the connection with
the brand even if there is a cost to do so (Elbedweihy et al., 2016; He &
Mukherjee, 2007; Moliner et al., 2018; Park et al., 2010; Shen & Sen­
gupta, 2018). Tourists who develop a high connection to the brand are
also more likely to engage in spreading positive WOM (Kwon & Mattila,
2015). Studies have also indicated that tourists who are connected
closely to a brand are inclined to wait for the brand and defend the brand
against brand criticism (Shen & Sengupta, 2018). Overall, a higher
self-brand connection will likely exert more positive impacts on the
responses of tourism experience storytellers.
According to the arguments above, we predict that the enhanced self-
brand connection arising from tourists’ speaking (vs. writing) about a
favored brand should yield positive outcomes for marketers. Therefore,
we put forward the hypothesis below.
H2. Self-brand connection mediates the relationship between WOM
communication type and tourism experience storytellers’ responses
(recommendation intention, H2a; repurchase intention, H2b).
2.4. The moderating role of tourism experience type
As suggested by Moore (2012), the relationship between WOM
communication types and tourist responses may hinge on the tourism
experience type. According to the framework of consumption experience
motivation value, the consumption experience could be categorized into
hedonic and utilitarian experiences (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000). The
difference between these two types lies in that hedonic experiences are
motivated by pleasure and are emotional in nature, while utilitarian
experiences are motivated to accomplish a goal and are more instru­
mental (Dhar & Wertenbroch, 2000; Holbrook & Hirschman, 1982).
This categorization could be also extended into the tourism context (Liu
et al., 2022). In the tourism context, hedonic experiences are mainly
characterized by tourist emotions or sensations (e.g. pleasure), and
utilitarian experiences are often depicted by tourist cognitions or func­
tions (e.g. useful, practical) (Moore, 2012). For example, ordering hotels
with an online travel agency is likely to be a utilitarian tourism expe­
rience, and traveling in a scenic area is inclined to be a hedonic tourism
experience. Both hedonic and utilitarian experiences can bring value to
tourists. A hedonic tourism experience asserts that affective outcomes
will be observed and experienced by tourists (e.g., feelings of joy) from
the tourism experience; A utilitarian tourism experience signifies that
tourists will achieve practical goals in this type of experience. In addi­
tion, utilitarian tourism experiences are considered the results of
rational thinking and the success of self-control, while hedonic tourism
experiences are the results of perceptual thinking and lack in self-control
(Adaval, 2001).
The finding that hedonic experiences are primarily emotional is
supported by prior studies (e.g. Moore, 2012). In addition, when
describing hedonic tourism experiences, speech can be more aligned
with the nature of the experience, as oral communication could motivate
tourists to focus on the satisfaction of sensations and emotions, and
better convey tourists’ emotional attitudes towards the tourism brand.
Instead, writing requires tourists to put more effort to think and be
rational. In writing, tourists’ emotional satisfaction with the brand will
not be the focus of this type of communication. Moreover, utilitarian
tourism experiences can provide tourists with self-fulfilling values,
including instrumental and utilitarian values, and these values are more
easily aligned with and conveyed by writing. But the attenuation of
emotional power in the utilitarian experiences will not impair the
cognitive, instrumental, and utilitarian values conveyed (Moore, 2012).
Based on the finding of Shen and Sengupta (2018), tourists who share
S. Fang et al.
their experiences through oral communication would focus on them­
selves and then exert a stronger connection with the tourism brand than
through written communication. Therefore, for a hedonic tourism
experience, utilizing speech (oral communication) can better motivate
tourists’ self-brand connection than writing (written communication).
In contrast, a utilitarian tourism experience is conveyed mainly through
tourists’ cognition, not their emotions. Building upon the reasoning
above, we believe that the tourism experience type (hedonic vs. utili­
tarian) plays a role in moderating the relationship between the WOM
communication type and self-brand connection.
Furthermore, as proposed in H2, tourists could generate a stronger
connection with the tourism brand and then enhance their positive re­
sponses (e.g. recommend to others, repurchase the brand product) to the
tourism brand by dictating their experiences than by writing them.
Combining this rationale with the proposed mediating effect of self-
brand connection, we can infer that when sharing a hedonic experi­
ence, tourists would exert a stronger connection with the tourism brand
and be more possibly to recommend to others and repurchase the brand
through oral communication than through written communication. By
contrast, when sharing a utilitarian experience, tourists would produce
higher self-connection with the tourism brand and more positive re­
sponses through written communication than through oral communi­
cation. To sum up, we propose the corresponding hypotheses.
H3. The tourism experience type moderates the influence of WOM
communication type on the self-brand connection of tourism experience
storytellers. For hedonic tourism experiences, oral communication will
increase the self-brand connection to a greater extent than written
communication; For utilitarian tourism experiences, written communi­
cation will increase the self-brand connection to a greater extent than
oral communication.
H4. The tourism experience type moderates the influence of WOM
communication type on tourism experience storytellers’ responses via
the self-brand connection. For the hedonic tourism experience, oral (vs.
written) communication will bring more positive responses from
tourism experience storytellers through an increased self-brand
connection; For the utilitarian tourism experience, written (vs. oral)
communication will bring more positive responses from tourism expe­
rience storytellers through an increased self-brand connection.
2.5. Overview of the current research
To examine the hypotheses and the theoretical model presented
below (see Fig. 1), three experiments were performed. Study 1 aimed at
testing the main effect of communication type on tourism experience
storytellers’ responses (including recommendation intention and
repurchase intention) (H1) and the mediating role of self-brand
connection (H2) by using a student sample. To improve the external
validity of Study 1, Study 2 utilized a customer sample to retest H1 and
H2. Furthermore, Study 3 was conducted to test the moderating effect of
tourist experience type on the impacts of communication type on
tourism experience storytellers’ responses (H3) and the full moderated
mediation model (H4).
Fig. 1. Research framework.
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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530
3. Study 1
3.1. Methodology
Study design and participants. Study 1 employed one factor (WOM
communication type: oral vs. written) between-subjects design. It
adopted a student sample. We used the G*Power analysis to determine
the sample size before performing every experiment. In this study,
roughly 128 participants would be needed to achieve a medium effect
size (i.e., 0.3) with 80% power and a 5% false positive rate (Faul et al.,
2009; Li et al., 2022c). Study 1 was conducted on November 14, 2022. In
total, 146 students (51.4% female; 93.8% aged between 18 and 25) were
recruited.
Procedure and measurement. The experiment procedure is
comprised of two parts. First, participants were instructed to share their
tourist consumption experiences. They were guided to think about the
most impressive experiences in the past, whether positive or negative.
Participants could freely talk about any information about their tourist
consumption experiences but should focus on their opinions about
tourism products, services, and brands. In this part, the manipulation of
communication type was conducted based on the study of Shen and
Sengupta (2018). Specifically, participants in the group of speech were
invited to orally express their tourism consumption experiences by
voice. Each participant was required to record and share their thoughts
for about 30 s to 1 min. Participants in the group of writing were invited
to write down their tourist consumption experiences by text.
Then, after sharing their tourism consumption experience, partici­
pants were invited to complete a series of survey questions. The self-
brand connection was measured by seven questions (e.g., “The
tourism brand I mentioned reflects who I am”, “I can identify with the
tourism brand I mentioned”), adapted from Escalas and Bettman (2003).
Tourist response refers to the tourist behavioral intention generated
after they share their tourism consumption experience, which is oper­
ationalized through tourist recommendation intention and repurchase
Table 1
Measurements of variables.
Variable Item(s) Reference
Self-brand 1. The tourism brand I mentioned can reflect Escalas and
connection who I am Bettman (2003)
2. I can identify with the tourism brand
3. I feel a personal connection to the tourism
brand
4. I can use the tourism brand to
communicate who I am to others
5. The tourism brand can help me become
the type of person I want to be
6. The tourism brand reflects who I am and
the person I want to present to others
7. The tourism brand suits me well
Tourist Recommendation intention Al-Ansi et al.
response 1. I am willing to recommend to others the (2019)
tourism brand I just mentioned
2. I am willing to recommend to others
products and services of the tourism brand
3. When somebody ask my advice about
tourism, I would recommend to him/her the
tourism brand
4. I would encourage others to use products
and services of the tourism brand that I think
are worth recommending
Repurchase intention Su et al. (2016)
1. If I had a chance, I would like to re-order
the products and services of the brand
2. When there is a demand for consuming the
same products or services, I will give priority
to the tourism brand
3. If I could, I would like to continue to use
the products and services of the tourism
brand I just mentioned
S. Fang et al.
intention in this study. To measure recommendation intention, four
questions were utilized to ask participants about the likelihood that they
would recommend the tourism brand to others, based on the study of
Al-Ansi et al. (2019). To measure repurchase intention, participants
were asked to indicate their likelihood to purchase the tourism brand in
the future by three items, adapted from Su et al. (2016). All the items
were measured on a seven-point Likert scale (1 = “strongly disagree,”
and 7 = “strongly agree”). Reliability analyses revealed that all the
variables had high reliability, as each Cronbach’s alpha value was above
the cut-off value of 0.7 (self-brand connection, Cronbach’s α = 0.947;
recommendation intention, Cronbach’s α = 0.955; repurchase intention,
Cronbach’s α = 0.966). The details of the measurement scales were
presented in Table 1.
The previous studies denoted that tourism experience valence could
affect customers’ attitudes toward WOM communication (Berger et al.,
2021; Moore, 2012). We added the measurement of tourism experience
valence (positive or negative) in the present experiment. Although the
tourism experience valence is not the focus of the current study, we are
hoping to provide additional exploratory insights. As the study of Zhang
et al. (2019) indicated that gender may exert an impact on WOM
communication preference, therefore, the following studies considered
gender as a control variable. The difference in ages might also influence
tourists’ responses to WOM communication type and thus was consid­
ered as a control variable, too.
3.2. Results and discussion
The main effect. The results of a one-way ANCOVA analysis with
age and gender as covariates showed that oral communication signifi­
cantly enhanced tourists’ responses more than written communication.
As shown in Fig. 2, oral communication elicited a higher recommen­
dation intention than written communication, Mwritten = 4.39, Moral =
4.96, F (1, 142) = 4.026, p < 0.05; oral communication also drives more
repurchase intention than written communication, Mwritten = 4.03,
Fig. 2. The main effect of communication type on tourist response.
Table 2
The mediating effect results.
Communication type→self-brand connection→tourist recommendation
intention
Communication type→self-brand connection→tourist repurchase intention
Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530
Moral = 4.78, F (1, 142) = 7.309, p < 0.05. Consequently, H1a and H1b
was supported, which supported H1.
The mediating effect. The bootstrapping method was used to test
the mediating effect of self-brand connection. Performing PROCESS
software in SPSS, we chose Model 4 and generated 5000 bootstraps with
a 95% confidence interval (hereafter CI). As shown in Table 2, the results
of the mediation analysis confirmed that self-brand connection signifi­
cantly mediated the relationship between communication type and
tourist recommendation intention (CI = [0.0068, 1.0347], not including
zero), and the indirect effect size was 0.5175. Moreover, communication
type had no significant direct effect on tourist recommendation inten­
tion (CI = [− 0.1995, 0.7520], including zero), suggesting self-brand
connection played a fully mediating role. H2a was supported. Simi­
larly, self-brand connection fully mediated the relationship between
communication type and tourist repurchase intention, the indirect ef­
fect = 0.5157, CI = [0.0150, 1.0346], not including zero; the direct
effect = 0.3580, CI = [− 0.1353, 0.8512], including zero. H2b was
supported and thus H2 held.
Post-hoc analysis. In order to further explore the tourist experience
valence in affecting the effect of WOM communication type, we con­
ducted a post-hoc analysis to analyze the moderating effect of tourism
experience valence (positive vs. negative). Utilizing a two-way ANOVA
analysis, the results revealed that the moderating effect of tourism
experience valence was significant, F (1, 142) = 5.951, p < 0.05. Spe­
cifically, in the condition of positive tourism experience valence, oral
communication exerts more impact on tourism experience storytellers
than written communication, Mwritten = 3.56, Moral = 4.65; conversely,
in the condition of negative tourism experience valence, written
communication produces more impact on tourism experience story­
tellers than oral communication, Mwritten = 4.39, Moral = 4.35.
Discussion. The results from Study 1 support both H1 and H2, thus
the main effect of communication type and the mediating role of the self-
brand connection were confirmed. Study 1 provided a piece of initial
empirical evidence that oral communication will elicit more positive
Indirect effect S.E. 95% CI Direct effect S.E. 95% CI
Lower Upper Lower Upper
0.5175 0.2595 0.0068 1.0347 0.2762 0.2391 − 0.1995 0.7520
0.5157 0.2586 0.0150 1.0346 0.3580 0.2479 − 0.1353 0.8512
525
S. Fang et al.
responses from tourism experience storytellers than written communi­
cation and this effect works through an enhanced tourist-brand
connection. However, this study only tested the effects by using stu­
dent samples. Will the same observation hold for the non-student sam­
ple? Further study should consider improving the external validity of the
present study.
4. Study 2
4.1. Methodology
Study design and participants. The main purpose of Study 2 was to
generalize the results from Study 1. The identical experimental design as
used in Study 1 was performed. To generalize the results from Study 1,
Study 2 adopted a real customer sample. Similarly, the G*Power analysis
indicated that 128 participants would be needed. Study 2 was finally
completed on November 16, 2022.144 participants who had tourist
consumption experiences were recruited through Wechat and QQ (two
famous social media platforms in China) and Credamo (data collection
platform) (Liu & Li, 2022; Li et al., 2022a, 2022b). Among them, 48.6%
were females. Most participants were aged between 18 and 40, 63.2% of
participants were aged between 18 and 25, 17.4% were aged between 26
and 30, and 15.3% were aged between 31 and 40. They were randomly
assigned to one of the two groups: 75 participants in the condition of oral
communication and 69 participants in the condition of written
communication.
Procedure and measurement. The experimental procedure was the
same as in Study 1. Notably, results obtained in Study 1 still hold in
Study 2. The only distinction between Study 1 and Study 2 was that
Study 2 invited the participants to share their most memorable tourism
experiences, which should be positive. The same items that were used in
Study 1 were adopted in Study 2. The results indicated that all three
variables had high reliability (self-brand connection, Cronbach’s α =
0.936; recommendation intention, Cronbach’s α = 0.890; repurchase
intention, Cronbach’s α = 0.865).
4.2. Results and discussion
Main effect. To test the main effect of communication type on
tourists’ responses, a one-way ANCOVA analysis with gender and age as
covariates was carried out. Results showed that, compared to written
communication, oral communication significantly improved tourists’
recommendation intentions, Mwritten = 5.35, Moral = 5.65, F (1, 140) =
Fig. 3. The main effect of communication type on tourist response.
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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530
4.209, p < 0.05. Therefore, H1a was supported. Similarly, oral
communication significantly improved tourists’ repurchase intentions
more than written communication, Mwritten = 5.44, Moral = 5.72, F (1,
140) = 3.906, p = 0.05, supporting H1b. Overall, H1 was supported (see
Fig. 3).
The mediating effect of self-brand connection. The bootstrapping
method was performed to analyze the mediating effect of self-brand
connection (PROCESS model 4, 5000 samples) (e.g. Fang et al., 2020).
The results confirmed that self-brand connection plays a significant
mediating role between WOM sharing type and tourists’ responses.
Specifically, self-brand connection mediated the relationship between
WOM sharing type and tourist recommendation intention (effect size =
0.2877, 95% CI = [0.0668, 0.5107]), as well as the relationship between
WOM sharing type and tourist repurchase intention (effect size =
0.2590, 95% CI = [0.0646, 0.4441]). Both H2a and H2b was supported
and therefore, H2 was supported.
Discussion. Study 2 extended the findings from Study 1 to a
different sample with a slight change in the study design procedure,
which allows the opportunity for participants to share their memorable
tourism experiences. Study 2 confirms the results from Study 1. It
demonstrates that when sharing positive tourism experiences, tourism
experience storytellers will exert a higher intention of recommendation
and repurchase through oral communication than through written
communication. Such an effect works via the mediating role of tourist-
brand connection that is amplified in the sharing process. Moreover,
this finding holds for both non-student and student samples. With the
main effect and mediating effect tested and confirmed in Studies 1 and 2,
we examine the boundary condition of the effects in Study 3.
5. Study 3
5.1. Methodology
Study design and participants. To test the moderating effect of the
tourist experience type, a 2 (communication type: oral vs. written) × 2
(tourism experience type: hedonic vs. utilitarian) between-subjects
experiment was designed. To reach a medium-sized effect (i.e., 0.25)
with 80% power and a 5% false-positive rate, the G*Power result indi­
cated that 179 participants would be needed for a two-way ANOVA
analysis. 201 participants were recruited from the same platforms as in
Study 2. Each participant was then randomly assigned to one of the four
experimental groups. Of these, 56.2% were male. Most of the sample
were aged between 18 and 25 years (66.7%), followed by the sample
S. Fang et al.
aged between 26 and 30 (15.9%).
Procedure and stimuli. The experiment procedure was almost
identical to Study 1. Participants were asked to share their tourism
consumption experience by voice or text. Besides, they were required to
share their hedonic consumption experience (vs. utilitarian consump­
tion experience). For example, one participant shared a hedonic expe­
rience of trying local special snacks in a tourist area. When asked to
share a utilitarian experience, one participant shared the experience of
purchasing an airline ticket through an online travel agency. At the end
of the experiment, participants were required to answer a series of
questions aiming to measure the model constructs. The measurements of
self-brand connection (Cronbach’s α = 0.942) and tourist response
(recommendation intention, Cronbach’s α = 0.945, and repurchase
intention, Cronbach’s α = 0.895) showed consistent reliability.
5.2. Results and discussion
Manipulation check. Two methods were adopted to check the
manipulation of tourism consumption experience type. First, one item
was used to ask the participants to indicate their shared experience type
(hedonic or utilitarian). Results showed that all participants in the he­
donic experience group considered that the experience they shared was
hedonic, and all the participants in the utilitarian experience group
believed the experience shared was utilitarian. Then, we invited another
26 participants to rate experience sharings, and indicate to which the
experience type belonged. Two hedonic experience sharings and two
utilitarian experience sharings were randomly selected from the exper­
iment for each rater. Results showed that all these four materials were
rated highly consistent with the group that the participants were
assigned (80.77%, 100%, 96.15%, 92.31%, separately; 92.31% on
average). Taken together, the manipulation of the tourism consumption
experience type was successful.
The moderating effect. We implemented a two-way between-sub­
ject design. A two-way ANCOVA with age and gender as covariates was
used to analyze the moderating effect of tourism experience type on the
relationship between WOM communication type and self-brand
connection. Results showed that the interaction between WOM
communication type and the self-brand connection was significant, F (1,
195) = 11.714, p < 0.05. As shown in Fig. 4, for the hedonic tourism
experience condition, oral communication enhanced tourists’ self-brand
Fig. 4. The moderating effect of the tourism experience type.
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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530
connection with the firm/brand to a greater extent than written
communication, Mwritten = 4.98, Moral = 5.57. By contrast, for the util­
itarian tourism experience condition, written communication exerts
much more positive impacts on tourists’ self-brand connection with the
firm/brand than oral communication, Mwritten = 4.81, Moral = 4.31.
Therefore, H3 was supported.
The moderated mediation model. The bootstrapping method was
used to test the moderated mediation model (PROCESS model 8, Hayes,
2017). We ran two separate models for the two tourists’ responses
(recommendation intention and repurchase intention). In the PROCESS
software, communication type was entered as the independent variable,
the self-brand connection was entered as the mediator, tourist recom­
mendation intention was the dependent variable and tourism experience
type was the moderator (see Table 3, Model 1). Results indicated that the
indirect effect was significant for tourists sharing hedonic experiences
(indirect effect = 0.3794, CI = [0.1579,0.6128], not including zero), but
not for tourists sharing utilitarian experiences (indirect effect =
− 0.3220, CI = [− 0.7327, 0.0313], including zero). The difference be­
tween these indirect effects was significant, CI = [− 1.1978, − 0.2814],
not including zero. The first moderated mediation model was confirmed
and hypothesis 3a, therefore, received support. Next, tourist repurchase
intention was included as the dependent variable in the moderated
mediation model (see Table 3, Model 2). Results showed that the indi­
rect effect was significant for tourists sharing hedonic experiences (in­
direct effect = 0.3694, CI = [0.1450, 0.5851], not including zero), but
not for tourists sharing utilitarian experiences (indirect effect =
− 0.3135, CI = [− 0.7080, 0.0290], including zero). The difference be­
tween these indirect effects was significant, CI = [− 1.1613, − 0.2629],
not including zero. The second moderated mediation model was also
identified and hypothesis 3 b received support. To be concluded, H4 was
supported and the moderated mediation models were confirmed.
Discussion. Study 3 examined the boundary condition of the effect
of WOM communication type. It suggests that it may not always be the
case that oral communication produces more positive responses from
tourism experience storytellers than written communication. Specif­
ically, the results depict that such an effect holds for sharing hedonic
tourism experiences, but not for sharing utilitarian tourism experiences.
Written communication generates more positive impacts on tourism
experience storytellers’ responses than oral communication.
S. Fang et al.
Table 3
The moderated mediation model results.
Dependent Variable Condition Indirect effect
Recommendation intention (Model 1) Hedonic experience 0.3794
Utilitarian experience − 0.3220
Repurchase intention (Model 2) Hedonic experience 0.3694
Utilitarian experience − 0.3135
Note: Index denoted the difference of effect size between conditional indirect effects.
6. Discussion and conclusion
The present study adopted the experiment method to examine the
impacts of WOM communication type on the responses of communica­
tors themselves, that is, tourism experience storytellers. Results revealed
that speech (oral communication) has a stronger impact on tourism
experience storytellers’ responses (i.e., recommendation intention and
repurchase intention) than writing (written communication). It suggests
that the WOM communication type not only affects tourism experience
listeners but also storytellers. To be specific, for tourism experience
storytellers, the oral communication type of WOM exerts more positive
responses than written communication. This result supported previous
studies, such as Berger et al. (2021), Moore (2012), and Shen and Sen­
gupta (2018). Additionally, the self-brand connection has been tested to
be one of the explanations for why oral communication is more powerful
than written communication for tourism experience storytellers. This
finding was consistent with the study of Shen and Sengupta (2018) that
speech exerts stronger positive impacts on self-brand connection than
writing. It also provided an explanation for the impacts of WOM
communication type on tourists’ behavioral intentions. Further, the
present study reported that the tourism experience type moderated the
impacts of the communication type of WOM on tourism experience
storytellers’ responses. Specifically, in the condition of hedonic tourism
experiences, speaking will exert more positive impacts on tourism
experience storytellers, while writing will exert more positive impacts
on tourism experience storytellers in the condition of utilitarian tourism
experiences. As a result, the impact of the communication type of WOM
on tourism experience storytellers will be contingent on the tourism
experience type.
In summary, the current work suggests that oral communication is
more powerful for tourism experience storytellers than written
communication. And this effect works through self-brand connection.
However, the main effect of WOM communication on the responses of
tourism experience storytellers only holds for hedonic tourism experi­
ences, not for utilitarian tourism experiences. The findings answer the
call for research on the effectiveness of the different types of WOM
communication in the tourism market (Lee & Oh, 2017).
6.1. Theoretical implications
This study makes three main theoretical contributions to the litera­
ture. First, the current work starts with a different angle to examine the
impacts of WOM communication. Most of the existing studies have
focused on the receivers of WOM (e.g. de Lima et al., 2020; Filieri et al.,
2018; Liao et al., 2021), however, little is known about the impacts of
WOM on communicators. To fill this gap, we empirically examined
WOM communication from the perspective of tourism experience sto­
rytellers as communicators, instead of receivers. This study not only
tested the impacts that the WOM communication type (i.e., speech
versus writing) exerts on communicators (recommendation intention
and repurchase intention), but also provided a theoretical explanation of
how WOM communication type affects communicators. Moreover, we
considered the important boundary condition that moderates the effects
of WOM communication type on communicators, which is the tourism
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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530
95% CI Difference between conditional indirect effects
Index 95% CI
Lower Upper Lower Upper
0.1579 0.6128 − 0.7014 − 1.1978 − 0.2814
− 0.7327 0.0313
0.1450 0.5851 − 0.6829 − 1.1613 − 0.2629
− 0.7080 0.0290
experience type. Consequently, this study provides a full understanding
of whether, how, and when WOM communication type affects com­
municators in the tourism context.
Second, this research tested and compared the effectiveness of the
two types of WOM communication (i.e., oral communication and writ­
ten communication). The previous studies paid much attention to
characterizing the difference between the two WOM communication
types (e.g. Berger et al., 2021; Eisingerich et al., 2015). However, it has
been unclear which WOM communication type is more effective. We,
therefore, compared the main category of WOM communication type,
oral communication/speech and written communication/writing in the
context of tourism. Results denote that speech has a more positive
impact on tourism experience storytellers’ responses than writing. Ac­
cording to this finding, speech can be regarded as a more useful mar­
keting tool in general for motivating the WOM from a tourism
experience storyteller. Importantly, the moderated mediation model
results show that the conclusion that speech is more powerful than
writing may not always hold. The model advances the prior studies on
the effectiveness of WOM communication type (e.g Shen & Sengupta,
2018). Tourists’ tourism experience type plays a moderating role in the
impacts of WOM communication type on tourism experience storytellers
via the self-brand connection. For hedonic tourism experiences, speech
will generate more positive responses from tourism experience story­
tellers. On the contrary, writing will exert more positive responses from
tourism experience storytellers for utilitarian tourism experiences.
Third, this study advances our standings of how WOM communica­
tion type influences tourism experience storytellers in the tourism
context. In the prior studies, scholars have examined the difference
between speech/oral communication and writing/written communica­
tion among receivers (e.g. Berger, 2014; Eisingerich et al., 2015). Little
attention has been given to the effects of WOM communication type on
communicators and the underlying processes that explain how WOM
communication type leads to positive outcomes for communicators. Our
study revealed that WOM communication type can influence tourism
experience storytellers, the communicators, through self-brand
connection. Specifically, the speech type of WOM communication pro­
duces a stronger connection between the tourism experience storytellers
and the tourism firm/brand than writing, which then leads to a higher
willingness to recommend and repurchase. Hence, the present study
extends our understanding of how WOM communication type influences
communicators.
6.2. Practical implications
The present study has several beneficial implications for managers of
tourism firms, especially for marketing managers. First, based on the
findings from the current study, managers should pay attention to the
role of speech, an oral communication type of WOM. By comparing the
two different types of WOM, the empirical results of this study showed
that speech could elicit much more positive responses from tourism
experience storytellers than writing. That is, the present study revealed
that speech resonates better with the tourism experience storytellers and
exerts better communication quality, rather than quantity. The speech
type of WOM communication could be delivered through tourism-
S. Fang et al.
sharing meetings offline, friends chatting, and even voice comments.
This will give tourists an opportunity to convey more emotions and
share tourism experiences in time, receive feedback and promote ex­
pressions of feelings, attitudes, and opinions. Consequently, tourism
managers should not overlook the role of oral communication in the
internet area. Moreover, tourism firms should consider providing more
oral communication channels and encourage tourists to speak more
about their opinions towards tourism brands, thus enhancing the posi­
tive responses of tourists (e.g. recommendation to others and repurch­
ase). At the same time, managers should manage tourists’ negative
evaluations according to their communication type. The result of post-
hoc analysis in Study 1 indicated that oral communication exerts more
negative responses than written communication for sharing negative
experiences. Therefore, managers could put a closer monitor on tourists’
oral communication and manage negative public opinion in time. More
specifically, managers should pay more attention to tourists’ oral
communication (mostly delivered in the format of videos) on social
media sites (e.g. Weibo and Facebook) and tourism brand websites. As
such, managers could establish a customer satisfaction team to scruti­
nize tourists’ negative evaluations posted through videos and respond to
these tourists promptly, and thus the negative dissemination online
would be responded to and managed in time.
More importantly, the present study provides insights into how to
make better use of WOM communication types. The present study has
considered an important factor of tourism experience type on the rela­
tionship between WOM communication type and responses of tourism
experience storytellers. The results illustrated that speaking will elicit
more positive tourist responses from hedonic tourism experience sto­
rytellers, while writing will elicit more positive tourist responses from
utilitarian tourism experience storytellers. That is, the effectiveness of
the WOM communication type is contingent on the tourism experience
type. According to this finding, tourism managers should consider
tourists’ tourism experience types in their WOM communication pro­
motion strategy. Specifically, tourism managers should facilitate and
encourage tourists to share their experiences of hedonic tourism expe­
riences through the communication channel of speech, thus strength­
ening the tourist-brand connection and leading to higher
recommendation intention and repurchase intention. Instead, tourists
should be encouraged to share their utilitarian tourism experiences
through the communication channel of writing, to strengthen the
tourist-brand connection, therefore their following recommendation
intention and repurchase intention. In summary, to better take advan­
tage of the WOM communication type, tourism firm managers should
consider the role of the tourism experience type in forming marketing
strategies.
Finally, the present study demonstrates that tourists’ WOM
communication will positively influence their own recommendation
intention and repurchase intention via a stronger connection formed
with the firm/the brand. This finding suggests that tourism brand
managers can enhance the connection between tourists and their firm/
brand through WOM communication. In the process of WOM commu­
nication, tourists who share their personal tourism experiences would
mostly like to mention the favored tourism brands, products, and ser­
vices. The favored tourism brands are often consistent with tourists’ self-
concept and convey the tourists’ characteristics, tastes and styles. Under
such circumstances, tourists will produce higher identification with the
tourism brand and thus a higher connection with the tourism brand.
Tourists would be more willing to recommend to others the tourism
brand that they identify with and are more likely to purchase or visit the
tourism brand. Hence, tourism managers should encourage tourists to
express more about themselves in the WOM communication to
strengthen the relationship with tourists and achieve the goals of
building tourism brands’ image and conveying tourism brands’
meaning.
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Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management 54 (2023) 521–530
6.3. Limitations and future directions
Despite the rigorous design, the present study has limitations, which
suggests the directions for future research. First, the present study pro­
vided an important mechanism and the boundary condition of the two
different WOM communication types. Other reasons (e.g. the aims of
WOM communication) or moderators (e.g. the characteristics of tourism
experience storyteller and valence of tourism experience) also deserve
consideration. Second, participants in the three experiments were asked
to recall the true tourism experiences that related to tourism brands by
oral or written communication. This data collection approach might not
be applicable to other tourist groups who are not familiar with the two
WOM communication technologies used in the current data collection.
Considering this condition, we only invited young adults (almost 18–30
years old) to participate in the experiments, which limits the general­
izability of the findings of the present study. Therefore, future studies
need to test the three hypotheses by including people from other age
groups. Third, the present study was conducted in a homogenous cul­
tural group. To improve the external validity, future studies should test
the results in more countries and cultures.
Funding
This research was supported by grant from the China Postdoctoral
Science Foundation (Grant No. 2022M722859) awarded to Shujie Fang.
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Shujie Fang, Email: fangshj6@zzu.edu.cn. Her research interests include service mar­
keting and tourism marketing.
Yaoqi Li (corresponding author), Email: liyaoqi3@mail.sysu.edu.cn, telephone:
+8613826483310. His research interest is tourist behavior, decent work and cause-related
marketing.
Chun Zhang, Email:czhang4@udayton.edu. Her research interest is service marketing and
consumer behavior.
Lulu Ye, Email: yellu1210@163.com. Her research interest is tourism marketing.