The Mediating Role of Green Image Between Social Media Attributes and the Intention to Revisit Green Resorts

This study aims to investigate the social media attributes that can impact the tourist’s intention to revisit green resorts in the Maldives, mediated by the green image. These attributes include sharing of content, accessibility, and credibility. The social information processing theory was utilized as the theoretical basis. A quantitative research method was employed. The primary data was collected through an online survey targeted to the tourists who visit the Maldives green resorts and have used social media to search for information/ details on the green resorts, which yielded 140 usable responses. Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was employed to analyze the data. The results confirmed that the sharing of content and accessibility of social media positively impact the green image, which in turn, green image drives tourists’ intention to revisit. However, the credibility of social media did not exert a significant impact on the green image and the mediating effect found that the credibility of social media did not mediate tourists’ intention to revisit green resorts. By utilizing the social information processing theory to explain the framework, this study provides a new perspective that looks from the lens of social media and sustainable marketing point of view, as previous studies mainly look from the perspective of Stimulus-Organism-Response and Theory of Planned Behaviour. Besides, the study contributed to the sustainable marketing literature by testing the green image, rather than the corporate image, where studies on this relationship focused on developing economy context are less explored.