Effect of social-media message congruence and generational cohort on visual attention and information-processing in culinary tourism: An eye-tracking study

Abstract

Social networks are a source of competitive advantage for destination management organizations (DMOs) in promoting user-generated content. In the online environment, the generational cohort to which the user belongs significantly determines their motivations, preferences, and behaviors. Against this backdrop, and in context of culinary tourism, the present work aims to: (1) examine the degree of congruence between the messages that tourist receives from DMOs and other tourists through social network comments affects their attention and affective responses; (2) analyze the effect of generational cohort on user responses; (3) investigate the differences in gastronomy-related messages between generational cohorts according to different levels of congruence. An eye-tracking experiment is conducted to manipulate message congruence (high vs. low) and user's generational cohort (Millennials vs. Generation Z). Findings show faster attention-capture and higher cognitive processing in low-congruence gastronomy-related comments in both cohorts, while Generation Z users reported greater attention to culinary visuals.