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Please cite this article as: D. Sedera, S. Lokuge, M. Atapattu, U. Gretzel, Likesmdashthe key to my happiness: The moderating effect of social influence on travel experience, Information and Management (2017), http://dx.A c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 2 Likes-the key to my happiness: The moderating effect of social influence on travel experienceA c c e p t e d M a n u s c r i p t 3 that 52% of travelers changed their original travel plans as a result of comments received through social media [21]. Further, shared information about travel experiences has become an important source that influences the decisions of potential holidaymakers. According to "The Australia.com" Facebook survey, 72% participants used Facebook for seeking "holiday inspirations," and 82% of them were inspired to visit Australia through Facebook.Furthermore, the study found that 70% travelers update their Facebook status while on vacation, seeking acknowledgments from their friends and family [21].The social influence asserted through Facebook before and after the travel provides the context to this study. Herein, it is argued that an individual is subjected to social influence prior to travel when s/he receives feedback through comments or likes 1 of about the travel.This influences the traveler's expectations of the destination, places of travel, time of travel, and/or the mode of travel. Similarly, a traveler's post-travel experience is influenced by the comments s/he receives for their postings such as photographs and status updates made during the travels. As such, this study employs the expectation confirmation theory (ECT) to investigate how social media asserts social influence on the traveler's expectations and postexperience. Following Miller [22], it is argued that each traveler will develop preconsumption expectations and the relationship between expectations (i.e., pre-travel) and confirmation can be moderated by social influence. Similarly, it is logical to argue that their satisfaction (i.e., post-travel) is just as fluid and moderated by social influence.This research is designed to answer the following research questions: "Does social influence moderate the relationship between pre-travel expectations and confirmation?" and "Does social influence moderate the relationship between confirmation and post-travel satisfaction?" The scope of the study provides both researchers and practitioners an opportunity to observe the important role of social influence as a moderator.The two research questions required a longitudinal study to gauge the moderating effect of social influence on (i) the relationship between expectations and confirmation and (ii) the relationship between confirmation and satisfaction in the ECT [23][24][25]. It is noted that most ECT and social influence studies are simply cross-sectional, and the present study is one of the very few studies to recognize the impact of time lag between variables longitudinally using the same respondents before and after a leisure tour. M a n u s c r i p t 30 Darshana SederaDar...