Veni, vidi, vici: The impact of social media on virtual acculturation in tourism context

Abstract This study aims to explore how social media usage can be leveraged to help tourists cope with acculturation when traveling aboard. Specifically, based on the findings of content analysis of the case company's chronicle posting on social media and in-depth interviews with its reviewers, we propose a theoretical process model to elucidate the major roles of social media in influencing the tourists' “virtual” acculturation process: an information source for destination selection, a learning center for cultural related skills for sociological adaptation, and a buffer of social support for psychological adjustment. This study contributes to the acculturation literature by extending the concept of “acculturation” to include indirect and intermittent “virtual” intercultural contacts and investigating the roles of social media in the various stages of virtual acculturation process. Additionally, it also enriches social media research in tourism literature as extant studies have mainly focused on social media application in destination branding. The implications of our findings will help tourism managers optimize their social media marketing efforts towards better trip experience with more positive acculturation outcome.