Entwined tenets of destination evangelism and commitment in social-media-based travel community

The present study aims to improve our understanding of destination evangelism, commitment, and engagement in the context of social-media-based travel communities (SMTCs). Additionally, it investigates distinct antecedents and outcomes, adding unique specificities to SMTCs’ engagement, commitment, and evangelism. The collected data were analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings signify that customer citizenship behavior (CCB) positively impacts evangelism and engagement, thereby affecting commitment. The sense of obligation for altruistic actions (SOAA) impacts commitment, engagement, and evangelism and is positively influenced by CCB. Our data reinforce the mediating effects of engagement, evangelism, and SOAA, which could help advance existing tourism literature. Specifically, SOAA mediated the relationships between 1. CCB and engagement and 2. CCB and evangelism. Evangelism mediates the relationships between 1. SOAA and commitment, and 2. SOAA and engagement. Engagement mediated the relationship between SOAA and commitment. This study is one of the few to integrate these constructs, weaving and binding diverse streams of tourism, engagement, evangelism, CCB, and SOAA, which further explains and extends the literature on travel commitment in SMTC settings.