STUDY ON THE NEXUS OF CSR AND SOCIAL MEDIA ENGAGEMENT ON TOURIST DESTINATION LOYALTY IN SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT NATURE-BASED TOURISM

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), and destination brand loyalty and social media engagement, which is not well understood. This particularly occurs in the sustainable development context of nature-based tourism in managing the negative impact on the environment, which is rather challenging. Moreover, the current research aims to develop a simple model for investigating the interrelationship of CSR as well as destination loyalty by incorporating social media engagement as a moderating variable. This is to investigate the impact mechanism of CSR activities of tourists towards tourists' destination brand loyalty in the context of nature-based tourism. The data for this study were obtained from 285 tourists who visited a popular marine park site in Malaysia. The researchers used the partial least squares structural equation modeling technique to analyze the collected data. The findings revealed that both CSR and social media engagement had an impact on destination brand loyalty. These findings have important implications for destination operators, suggesting that incorporating CSR activities into their strategies can be a strategic approach for achieving sustainable success.