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Against the background of the popularity of social media and heritage tourism, this study aims to focus on world heritage sites, proposing a method to examine and compare the digital spatial footprints left by tourists using geographic information systems.

By analyzing user-generated content from social media, this research explores how digital data shapes the destination image of WHS and the spatial relationships between the components of this destination image. Drawing on the cognitive-affective model (CAM), it investigates through an analysis of integrated data with more than 20,000 reviews and 2,000 photos.

The creativity of this research lies in the creation of a comprehensive method that combines text and image analytics with machine learning and GIS to examine spatial relationships within the CAM framework in a visual manner.

The results reveal tourists' perceptions, emotions, and attitudes towards George Town and Malacca in Malaysia, highlighting several key cognitive impressions, such as history, museums, churches, sea, and food, as well as the primary emotions expressed. Their distributions and relationships are also illustrated on maps.

Tourism practitioners, government officials, and residents can gain valuable insights from this study. The proposed methodology provides a valuable reference for future tourism studies and help to achieve a sustainable competitive advantage for other heritage destinations.

eWOM is a very useful tool that is widely used nowadays to make a purchase decision. One of the sectors where this tool is very present is the gastronomic sector and Peru is no stranger to this gastronomic take-off. As a part of this take-off, Nikkei or Peruvian-Japanese cuisine have gained plenty of attention through digital social platforms, with a significant number of users relying on eWOM to determine which is their best purchase option; nevertheless, there is a lack of local investigations that addresses a correlation between eWOM and purchase intention in this type of restaurants. With the last statement, this study aims to determine the influence of eWOM on the purchase intention of consumers of Nikkei restaurants in Lima, Peru.

A quantitative descriptive and causal explanatory research was conducted, using the Information Acceptance Model (IACM) to test the purpose of the study. A total of 385 surveys were obtained and processed in SmartPLS.

The results show that consumers of Nikkei restaurants in Metropolitan Lima are mostly guided by the eWOM that is on social media to make a purchase decision. In addition, information usefulness is the eWOM dimension that most influences purchase intention. Finally, it was found that the credibility of the eWOM does not influence the information usefulness, which could be due to the distrust of the sources and the anonymity of the eWOM.

The present investigation identified that certain dimensions of the IACM does not influence their hypothesized counterparts, such as credibility and attitude towards information over information usefulness; circumstances that may conduct to other local studies based on the IACM applied to other type of restaurants to observe if there is some type of variation in the results obtained of both hypotheses.

From a practical point of view, the results obtained are valuable for social media marketers and generally digital marketing professionals, which by themselves provide a framework that assures a better understanding about the impact of eWOM in the purchase intention of Nikkei Restaurant consumers.

As the potential for this research to impact society in visible ways, it identifies how current individuals in a certain time and location, tend to act towards information obtained in social media or specialised forums; as well as how the characteristics of this information could affect their final purchase decision.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first articles to study the influence of eWOM on purchase intention in the gastronomic sector in Peru, a country famous for its gastronomy. In this way, experts and professionals in this field will be able to generate knowledge of this tool, as well as generate strategies to improve sales of Nikkei restaurants and in general within the gastronomy industry in Peru.

Brand interaction on social media increasingly involves brands openly praising their competitors. This paper examines the impact of selecting a praising target based on company size in brand-to-brand praise, such as praising a smaller competitor versus a larger competitor, on consumers’ evaluations of the praiser.

Three online survey experiments using Sina Weibo as the stimuli were conducted to analyze the brand evaluation of brand-to-brand praising. Data were collected via Credamo.

Praising a smaller competitor leads to an increased evaluation of the praiser brand compared to praising a larger competitor. The perceived competence mediates the influence of relative brand size on praiser brand evaluation. Additionally, the praiser brand’s gender moderates the influence of relative brand size on the praiser brand evaluation, with a notable enhancement observed only for the masculine praiser brand.

This paper suggests several avenues for future research. First, future research can examine how companies tailor praise content based on the recipient size. Second, future studies can consider the role of competition type, brand development potential and the perceptual differences between competitor sizes. Third, we encourage future research to examine whether certain brand personalities benefit more from praising smaller competitors and extend our study’s scope to non-food industries to generate more generalizable results. Lastly, future studies can look into the conditions where a praised brand should respond to public praise and the potential of such interactions to boost consumer favorability.

This study offers valuable insights for brand managers to boost customers’ perception of brand competence and brand evaluations through interactive marketing on social media. Brand managers are recommended to direct their praise towards smaller competitors to maximize the positive impact. Additionally, our study highlights the pivotal role of brand gender in effective brand-to-brand communication strategies. Notably, masculine brands can particularly benefit from praising smaller competitors. Overall, considering factors like company size and brand gender is crucial for crafting effective brand-to-brand praise strategies that can enhance brand competence perceptions and evaluations, ultimately fostering loyalty and sales.

This study offers rich social implications regarding customers’ attitudes toward brand-to-brand praise on social media. Zhou et al. (2022) showed that brands praising competitors can significantly enhance consumer preference compared to other communication forms. Furthermore, this paper investigates how observing different types of brand-to-brand praise impacts consumer brand evaluations, such as praising larger or smaller competitors. We found that consumers preferentially evaluate brands that praise smaller (vs larger) competitors, and this effect is particularly salient for masculine brands.

This study provides valuable insights about enhancing customer evaluations of praiser brands through brand-to-brand praising on social media, points out the underlying mechanism and identifies a boundary condition.

This paper examines the moderating effects of online reviews on the relationship between country image, product image, and purchase intention of products from two developed countries in Vietnam.

This current research used a cross-sectional design. Data was collected via questionnaires, and 305 responses were left after refining. The collected data were analyzed using exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multi-group analysis methods.

Affective country images do not directly affect purchase intention when online review quality and positivity are high. Cognitive country images still directly affect purchase intention when online review positiveness is low. However, online review quantity does not moderate the effects of country images on product images and purchase intention.

Cognitive country image consistently affects purchase intention through the central route independent of online reviews. In contrast, the affective country image will likely affect purchase intention through the peripheral route when online reviews are insufficient for customers.

Firms can mitigate the adverse effects of country image, especially cognitive country image, in foreign markets by improving online review quality and positiveness.

Our study extended existing literature by providing a better understanding of the nature of country image and the roles of country image dimensions in shaping product image and purchase intention in the context of the increasing popularity of online reviews.

This study explores the influence of gender-specific reactions to social media advertisements on purchase intentions, addressing a gap in existing research. It examines how these reactions affect the perceived value of ads and, consequently, the intention to purchase, with a particular focus on gender as a moderating factor. The primary aim is to analyse how gender moderates the relationship between consumers’ perceptions of the value of social media ads and their subsequent purchase intentions.

A non-probability convenience sampling method was employed to collect data from 423 social media users in Malaysia at shopping malls. Respondents interacted with advertisements on Facebook, Instagram or TikTok and completed a survey. Descriptive analysis was performed using SPSS 25. The study utilized structural equation modelling (SEM) to test the structural and measurement models. Multigroup analysis (MGA) was conducted using SMART-PLS 4.0.9.6 to assess moderation effects based on gender differences.

The findings reveal that advertisements emphasizing entertainment significantly influence female purchase intentions, whereas ads highlighting product or service values resonate more with males, challenging common stereotypes. Informative and creative ads show universal appeal across genders, underscoring the importance of diverse ad elements in shaping consumer behaviour.

This study advances the advertising value model by specifically identifying gender-based differences in how entertainment and perceived value in social media ads influence purchase intention. It uniquely reveals that females are more responsive to entertainment-focused and value-conscious ads. These findings provide targeted strategies for advertisers to design gender-sensitive campaigns, enhancing the model’s relevance in contemporary digital advertising contexts.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the influence of credibility and information quality (IQ) of online food vloggers on consumer attitude and purchase intention towards street food consumption. It also examines the relationship between consumer attitude and purchase intention influenced by online food vlogger reviews in North India.

In order to evaluate the framework, primary data were gathered from 389 street food consumers located in Jammu, Chandigarh and Delhi – cities situated in northern India. The collected data were then subjected to analysis using the partial least squares-structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) techniques.

The results indicate that the perceived value of street food, influenced by the credibility of food vloggers and the quality of information provided, has a positive impact on consumer attitude and purchase intention towards street food consumption. A positive impact of consumer attitude on the purchase and consumption of street food was also observed.

This research offers a thorough investigation into the elements that influence consumers' opinions regarding vloggers endorsements. The findings reveal that consumer's attitudes towards vloggers recommendations are mainly influenced by the quality of information provided, followed by credibility and the intention to make a purchase. Furthermore, this research is of significance to practitioners and academics interested in comprehending consumer behavior in the realms of tourism and food-related endeavors.

The peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/IJSE-02-2024-0158

Particularly in the rapidly expanding beauty and personal care sector, affiliate electronic word of mouth (eWOM) from affiliates has grown to be a dependable and trustworthy source of information. Guided by Signaling Theory, this paper aims to conduct a comprehensive analysis to understand the intricate dynamics of affiliate eWOM within the context of Iranian beauty and personal care products.

The study polled 330 consumers who have purchased beauty and personal care products in Iran. Data were gathered using a convenience sample, and the partial least square structural equation modeling model was used to examine and assess the hypotheses.

The results demonstrated a significant impact of information quality, rating, helpfulness and number of reviews, along with user-generated videos and photos, on the customer’s actual purchase and intention to purchase the beauty and personal care products. However, the ranking and recency of reviews do not significantly contribute to the stated relationship.

This research is first of its kind to analyze affiliate eWOM cues in the case of cosmetics e-commerce.

Online games are highly popular Internet applications. Some games enable players to save game progress and accumulate experiences or changes to avatars during gameplay, whereas some other games do not, requiring players to restart from the beginning each time. That is, games differ in avatar accumulability. However, we do not know whether games should be designed to permit avatar accumulability or not and how it affects players’ gameplay experience and therefore game outcomes, indicating gaps. Research addressing these gaps can inform game makers in designing games that effectively strengthen their players’ game loyalty.

We used social identity theory (SIT) to construct a theoretical model. To test this model, three waves of survey data were gathered from the same 778 participants.

These findings uniquely indicate that avatar accumulability fosters avatar identification and increases players’ focused immersion, thus increasing players’ loyalty.

Game providers could include game features that enable players to accumulate their avatars’ in-game skins, levels, items (weapons and equipment) and experience points. This accumulability can help strengthen players’ game loyalty.

Overall, our study extends SIT by adding a new trigger (avatar accumulability) and two novel consequences of avatar identification (image protection and focused immersion) in avatar-related systems (games or gamified systems). The new trigger offers an actionable means to apply SIT, while the novel consequences verify the value of applying SIT to study online games.

This study examines the role of online customer reviews through text mining and sentiment analysis to improve customer satisfaction across various services within the UK banking sector. Additionally, the study analyses sentiment trends over a five-year period.

Using DistilBERT and Support Vector Machine algorithms, customer sentiments were assessed through an analysis of 20,137 Trustpilot reviews of HSBC, Santander, and Tesco Bank from 2018 to 2023. Data pre-processing steps were implemented to ensure data integrity and minimize noise.

Both positive and negative sentiments provide valuable insights. The results indicate a high prevalence of negative sentiments related to customer service and communication, with HSBC and Santander receiving 90.8% and 89.7% negative feedback, respectively, compared to Tesco Bank’s 66.8%. Key areas for improvement include HSBC’s credit card services and call center efficiency, which experienced increased negative feedback during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings also demonstrate that DistilBERT excelled in categorizing reviews, while the SVM model, when combined with customer ratings, achieved 96% accuracy in sentiment analysis.

This study focuses on UK bank consumers of HSBC, Santander, and Tesco Bank. A multi-country or cross-cultural study may further enhance our understanding of the approaches and findings.

Online customer reviews become more informative when categorised by service sector. To enhance customer satisfaction, bank managers should pay attention to both positive and negative reviews, and track trends over time.

The uniqueness of this study lies in its exploration of the importance of categorisation in text-mining-based sentiment analysis, its focus on the influence of both positive and negative sentiments, and its emphasis on tracking sentiment trends over time.