Travelers’ food experience sharing on social network sites

The proliferation of social media offers new avenues for understanding traveler information sharing behavior. The purpose of this study was to explore the patterns of traveler food sharing experiences on soial network sites, their triggers, and consequences as well as the inter-relationships among these factors. Thirty-three semi-structured interviews and subsequent thematic analysis revealed five major sharing motivation domains including Social and relational, Self-image projection, Emotion articulation, Self-archiving, and Information sharing, all of which were situated along the two continuums (self–others and psychology–functionality) of a two-dimensional plane. This research uncovers fresh insights that are unique to travelers’ food experience sharing and offers theoretical contributions as well as practical implications for destination marketers.