The impact of online community participation on consumer trust and commitment toward hotel brands

Online communities are the most effective way to connect with consumers. Hospitality industry take advantage of online communities that are a new marketing channel to attain consumers. In the previous studies have defined participation benefits as functional, social, psychological, hedonic and monetary in the enrolee attandance of online community events. In this study added post attractiveness, post popularity and post quality which are named as post features. In consequence of attandance in online communities, trust and commitment wards hotel brands have been seen as significant element that increase consumer tie with hospitality brands. The aim of this study was to examine benefit factors of member attandance and the relationships community attandance, brand trust, brand commitment associated with post attractiveness, post popularity and post quality in hotel online communities. In this study introduces a conceptual model of the impact of online community participation on consumer trust and commitment toward hotel brands. The area study conducted on consumers who stayed at the hotel and previously searched information related to hotel and, another consumer opinion by social media. Key findings are reported from 407 participation in the area study. Gave place results of data that collected with questionnaire technique. In the results of analyses, eight out of nine hypotheses that we design have accepted. When we compare gender and factors, there is a meaningful difference between socio-psychological benefit with brand trust. There is not meaningful difference among with other variables. When we compare marital status and factors, there is a meaningful difference between socio-psychological benefit with brand commitment. There is not meaningful difference among with other variables. Keywords: Social media, online community, online community participation, brand commitment, brand trust