Sharing Tourism Experiences: The Posttrip Experience

Social media changes how travelers see and experience their trip. This study first proposes a framework which describes the relationships between social media and the tourism experience. Based upon this framework, it then examines the impact of social media when travelers share their emotions and perceptions after the trip. The results of the study confirm that sharing positive experiences post trip increases travelers’ positive affect while decreasing negative affect and therefore leads toward more positive overall evaluations. Further, we find that sharing unsatisfactory travel experiences through social media helps to reduce negative perceptions of the trip, which, in turn, enhances posttrip evaluations.