Open AccessCorporate Twitter use and stakeholder engagement: An empirical analysis of the Spanish hotel industry
Author(s) -
Enrique Bonsón Ponte,
Michaela Bednárová,
Susan Wei
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
european journal of tourism research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.467
H-Index - 16
eISSN - 1314-0817
pISSN - 1994-7658
DOI - 10.54055/ejtr.v13i.232
Subject(s) - hospitality industry , social media , hotel industry , stakeholder , hospitality , stakeholder engagement , sample (material) , public relations , stakeholder theory , corporate social responsibility , business , empirical research , marketing , empirical evidence , sociology , tourism , advertising , political science , philosophy , chemistry , epistemology , chromatography , law
This study provides a general overview of the way in which hotel chains use Twitter as a communication tool to engage with their stakeholders. A sample of 109 of the largest Spanish hotel chains was examined, obtaining the result that the majority of them maintain an official corporate Twitter account. In addition, it was found that there is a significant positive relationship between a hotel’s size and its Twitter activity and a significant negative relationship between the audience and the stakeholder engagement. Moreover, the findings of the paper show that particular media and content types generate higher stakeholder engagement. Given that this is the first study of its kind, the paper offers both theoretical implications for the social media literature and practical implications for the hospitality industry.