How destination brand experience influences tourist citizenship behavior: Testing mediation of brand relationship quality and moderation effects on commitment

Abstract

This study examines the potential predictors of tourist citizenship behavior based on the Stimulus–Organism–Response framework. The studies were conducted in China. Data were collected via questionnaire surveys. Structural equation path modeling and mediation as well as moderation role were used for data analyses. This model was used to test the hypotheses using a sample of 325 individuals with tourism experience in Guangzhou city. The results reveal that tourism destination brand experience and brand relationship quality significantly affect tourist citizenship behavior. Furthermore, the results show that brand relationship quality significantly mediates the relationship between tourism destination brand experience and tourist citizenship behavior and demonstrate that commitment plays a significant moderating role between brand relationship quality and tourist citizenship behavior. This study clearly shows the relationship between tourism destination brand experience, brand relationship quality, and tourist citizenship behavior. Thus, this study contributes to existing tourism studies by identifying gaps and proposing a holistic view to understand tourist citizenship behavior in the tourism industry.

A Review and Future Directions of Brand Experience Research in Tourism

“…Brand trust (Narimane & Lahcen, 2021), destination brand authenticity (Khan & Fatma, 2021), involvement and meaningfulness (Legendre et al, 2019), and customer mindfulness (Haobin et al, 2021) are also mediators of brand experience. Other identified mediators include heritage destination loyalty (Rahman et al, 2021), self-expansion (Guo & Hsu, 2023), flow experience and self-congruity (Fu et al, 2020), place attachment (Shang et al, 2020), brand attachment (Kang et al, 2017), brand relationship quality (Tang et al, 2023) and trustworthiness (Torres-Moraga & Barra (2023). The presence of various mediators of brand experience connote that brand experience influences brand-related and customer-related variables either directly or through other variables.…”