Offline aesthetic design of restaurants and consumers' online intention to post photographs: A moderated mediation model

Headnote

Consumers' motivation for photograph posting as a taste expression practice on social media platforms from an offline aesthetic perspective has been neglected in the literature. We explored the influential mechanisms in this relationship using positive emotional arousal and self-expression as mediators and centrality of visual servicescape aesthetics as a moderator. Data were collected from 273 consumers who had recently dined in well-designed restaurants in China and used social media. The results support the direct and indirect role of offline aesthetic design in consumers' formation of the intention to post photographs of their dining ambience on social media, and the partially moderating role of their aesthetic trait. Theoretical and practical implications for hospitality management and social media research are discussed.

Keywords

aesthetic design; positive emotional arousal; selfexpression; centrality of visual servicescape aesthetics; photographs; social media

Article Highlights

* The offline aesthetic design of restaurants was found to play an important role in the formation of consumers' online intention to post photographs on social media.

* We examined the influential mechanism by incorporating consumers' positive emotional arousal and self-expression as parallel multiple mediators.

* Centrality of visual servicescape aesthetics partially moderated the relationship between offline aesthetic design and intention to post photographs on social media.

Social media has emerged as the most prevalent and viable marketing tool (Aydin, 2020; Grewal et al., 2019; B. Kim et al., 2020; Zhu et al., 2019). Interactivity is one of the most prominent features enabling social media platforms to achieve satisfactory marketing performance (Aljukhadar et al., 2020; Kwon et al., 2021). Unlike traditional one-way communication, social media platforms enable consumers to communicate and share information, opinions, and feedback about products and services, leading to the formation of user-generated content (UGC; Alfakhri et al., 2018; Aljukhadar et al., 2020; Kwon et al., 2021). Modern consumers prefer instant communication and electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) to assist consumption decisions (B. Kim et al., 2020). UGC is a new type of eWOM for marketers to reach a broader range of consumers at a lower cost (Aydin, 2020; Martínez et al., 2020).

Image-based content is one of the most prevalent forms of UGC that users share on social media (LoweCalverley & Grieve, 2018; Stsiampkouskaya et al., 2021). As the saying goes, "a picture is worth a...