Unpacking the impact of social environment and psychological gratifications on tourists’ strategic self-presentation: a narrative identity perspective

Purpose This study aims to explore tourists’ strategic self-presentation manifested in travel experience sharing from a narrative identity perspective. Drawing upon narrative identity theory and the Mehrabian–Russell model, this research develops a conceptual model to examine the effect of social environment and psychological gratifications on tourists’ strategic self-presentation. Design/methodology/approach This study collected 487 valid surveys from US tourists. Partial least squares structural equation modeling was applied to examine the proposed model. Findings This study reveals that social environment (i.e. privacy control, social comparison and perceived social interaction) significantly evokes tourists’ psychological gratifications (i.e. perceived enjoyment and social posting confidence), which subsequently prompts their strategic self-presentation. Anticipated regret is found to negatively moderate the impact of perceived enjoyment on strategic self-presentation. Practical implications Our findings underscore the importance of social environment in triggering tourists’ psychological gratifications through social media engagement. Destination managers should collaborate with social media platforms to develop tailored destination applications and create interactive opportunities that allow customizable privacy settings and enhanced socialization features, thereby optimizing tourists’ travel experience sharing. Originality/value Our research represents one of the first attempts to theoretically examine travel experience sharing from a narrative identity perspective. It demonstrates how translating travel experience sharing into the online presentation of self-identity is driven by social environment and psychological gratifications, thereby contributing to social media research and environmental psychology literature in tourism.