Humblebragging, Travel Envy, and Destination Attitude: The Moderating Role of Face

The sharing of travel experiences is a common phenomenon. However, humblebragging as a sharing way is not necessarily conducive to promoting a destination. Based on two scenario-based surveys with total sample of 743 respondents, this study applies the analyses of regression, mediation, and moderation to investigate the effects of humblebragging on audiences’ attitudes toward a destination. Specifically, we examine how benign envy and malicious envy perform as mediators between humblebragging and destination attitude, and test the roles of desire to gain face and fear of losing face in moderating the effects of humblebragging on two types of envy. We then check whether common sharing or humblebragging sharing would change these relationships. Results show that humblebragging is both directly negatively related to destination attitude and has indirect negative effects on destination attitude via benign and malicious envy. We also find that desire to gain face positively moderates the negative effect of humblebragging on benign envy, and fear of losing face positively moderates the positive effect of humblebragging on malicious envy. Furthermore, those relationships all get stronger when the experience shared in a common way but become weaker in a humblebragging way. Implications for destination managers are discussed.