Strangers Versus Acquaintances’ Social Media Engagement: How Does Interpersonal Intimacy Influence Tourists’ Revisit Intentions?

Abstract

Grounded in social impact theory and attribution theory, this mixed-methods study using walk-along interviews and scenario-based experiments reveals that social media engagement by acquaintances promotes revisit intention. Comments from close acquaintances elicit the strongest intention, while comments from strangers produce the opposite effect. Social presence mediates these relationships. The positive effect is stronger on narrowcasting platforms and more likely to occur among high collectivism tourists or those sharing relaxing tourism activities. Conversely, for low collectivism tourists or when sharing challenging tourism activities, the effect reverses, and engagement by strangers is more likely to boost revisit intention. These findings explore how interpersonal intimacy influences revisit intention from relationship strength and interaction motivation perspectives. In marketing practice, travel social media platforms can adjust their algorithms to push content posted by tourists participating in relaxing (challenging) tourism activities or from countries with high (low) collectivism to acquaintances (strangers).