Master thesis
MSc in Business Administration - Marketing Track
Amsterdam Business School
Travel agencies using psychological distance to create consumer
engagement
Name
Silke Borst
Student number
11152206
Date
June 23, 2017
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Silke Borst who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Table of Content
Abstract ... 5
Introduction ... 6
2. Literature review ... 11
2.1 Social media ... 11
2.1.1 Social media advertisement ... 13
2.1.2 Social media in travel ...14
2.2 Construal-level theory ...14
2.2.1 CLT in the travel industry ...16
2.2.2 CLT in advertisement ...16
2.3 Bundled versus unbundled travel services ...19
2.3.1 Bundled and unbundled products in the travel industry ... 20
2.3.2 CLT in bundled services ... 20
2.4 Conceptual model ... 22
3. Methodology ... 23
3.1 Research design ... 23
3.2 Use and measurements of variables ... 25
3.3 Sampling ... 27
4. Results ... 28
4.1 Data cleaning and missing values ... 28
4.2 Demographic factors ... 28
4.3 Coding and recoding ... 29
4.6 Testing hypotheses ... 31 5. Discussion... 36 5.1 General discussion ... 36 5.2 Managerial implications ... 40 6. Conclusion ... 42 6.1 Summary ... 42
6.2 Limitations & Future research... 43
References ... 44
Abstract
This study analyses the relation between psychological distance and consumer engagement and the effect that bundled or unbundled travel services have on this relation. The different levels of construal involved in this study are temporal distance and social distance. Literature in this study is based on different principles; first the construal-level theory of Trope and Liberman (2010), second is theory of Harris and Blair (2006) and Paun (1993) who introduce their differentiating ideas on why people buy or prefer bundled services. Our interest lies within this topic, since the travel industry is changing. But moreover, since foreign countries became known by the many through use of social media and online worth of mouth. Therefore, we would like to know the influence that bundled and unbundled travel services have on the level of consumer engagement in social media advertisements. Since for bundled travel services everything is pre-arranged it takes less engagement compiling a holiday, while for bundled services it is the other way around. The effect is tested throughout an experiment, in which different social media advertisements are shown to participants. This research provides new and supportive data in relation to previous studies on how to use social and temporal distance in social media travel advertising. Furthermore, this research shows that by using specific types of psychological distance in their social media advertisements, either bundled or unbundled travel agencies are not able score substantially better than the other on consumer engagement. A different understanding of how to use social distance and temporal distance in which situations, might help travel marketers to generate a more positive attitude towards the advertisement and towards the brand.
Keywords: Temporal distance, Social distance, Consumer engagement, Bundled travel services & Unbundled travel services
Introduction
The past fifteen years the travel industry endured a massive change. At the beginning of this century, when planning a vacation, a visit to a local travel agency was for granted. Nowadays, because of breakthroughs in technologies and high-speed internet, travellers can book their flights and hotel accommodations online. Digitalisation has given travellers more choices than ever, moreover we observe an increase in personalized travel. Due to the digitalization, we have become a generation of Do It Yourself travellers, who plan, manage and book travel online (Bearne, 2016). Traditional travel agencies who offer bundled vacations have suffered from the rise of independent and unbundled travel and therefore are embracing the online and mobile channels in order to stay competitive.
We see more and more travel agencies act on social media. Most agencies use similar types of advertisements when taking construal-level theory into account (CLT). CLT is a framework that links distance and abstraction (Trope & Liberman, 2010) to indicate the level of distance or abstraction different levels of psychological distance can be used. In this study we focus on temporal distance, which indicates that when an event is presented in a distant future, it is shown in a more abstract and high-level manner then when an event is presented in the near future. Second we focus on social distance, which shows that people will have a more abstract mind set when behavior is performed by a dissimilar other than when is it performed by someone similar (Eyal & Liberman, 2012). Take for instance “Airbnb” who offers single accommodations (appendix 1) and “Eliza was here” who provides bundled vacations (appendix 2). In their advertisements they both focus on personal stories from travellers and therefore try to decrease the social distance between the consumer and vacation. When looking at contradicting advertisements from “Transavia” (unbundled) and “Sunweb” (bundled), they both use the same type of temporal distance as you can see in appendix 3 and 4. In these advertisements we see that both bundled and unbundled travel agencies use the same level of construal, according to temporal and social distance.
Since there are so many similarities and differences between social media advertisements from travel agencies. Therefore, it is interesting to study which level of psychological distance can be used best for which travel service taking the departure date into account. But which type of advertisements can be used best according to the construal-level theory for both bundled and unbundled travel agencies?
Background
Use of social media is growing for both consumers and businesses. The extensive use by brands is supported by eMarketer who explains that social media is the most effective way to reach the right consumers at this period of time. Especially since the update Facebook did in august 2016, which gives users more control over the type of advertisement they see based on their preferences. This makes it for brands easier to target the right consumers (Peltier, 2016). Travel brands are good examples to use in this situation, because they have two clear consumer groups. Either the group who is interested in travel and have a high-level of involvement or low-level of distance towards brand posts about vacation and travel, and the group of consumers who is not interested and therefore have a low-level of involvement and high-level of distance (Petty, Cacioppo, & Schumann, 1983; Trope & Liberman, 2010). Previous literature explains that the main reasons to follow a brand is for information seeking purposes, which makes consumers automatically more involved towards the brand because they show interest (Logan, 2014). Since developments in technology and therefore the rise of internet and social media, it becomes easier for people to be involved with travel agencies, find information on foreign accommodations and to get to know the culture, nature and people of the preferred country. Therefore, the barrier for consumers to travel on their own expertise becomes smaller.
The construal-level theory of Trope and Liberman (2003) is an important factor for explaining and predicting consumer behavior and decision making in diverse paradigms as purchasing decisions and intentions, brand representation and risk taking (Fiedler, 2007). CLT on consumers’ choices is consistent with the viewpoint of the behavioural decision theory, which notes that preferences leading to choices are highly dependent on tasks or contextual
factors in advertisements (Dhar & Kim, 2007). In order to stimulate consumer choices, a better fit should be created in social media advertising. Here different dimensions of psychological distance can be used, like; time, space and graphics, which indicate how concrete and feasible or how abstract and desirable advertisement are (Eyal & Liberman, 2012; Trope, Liberman, & Wakslak, 2007). The strength of the CLT is its ability to provide an understanding on how evaluations of consumers change on the basis of psychological distance (Dhar & Kim, 2007), therefore the right dimension should be used in advertisements.
This study mainly focusses on the difference between bundled and unbundled travel services. This became an interesting topic since a transition in the travel industry. Where twenty years ago a vacation to a foreign country was unknown or only known by worth-of-mouth. Nowadays, through internet and social media these foreign destinations become known and tangible for everybody. Therefore, the use of bundled vacations diminishes and the option to create your own personalized vacation increases, since the psychological distance decreases and the level of involvement grows towards different travel options (Bearne, 2016). For travel agencies who offer bundled products to stay successful they need to know where their qualities lie within social media advertising. In this study the possibilities for travel agency advertisement are being explored according to the construal-level theory.
Research GAP
The use of social media is growing and therefore the impact it has on people’s lives (Greenwood, 2016). The goal of this research is to study the relation between level of construal and consumer engagement on social media posts for bundled or unbundled services, according to factors like temporal distance and social distance (Trope & Liberman, 2010). We will study this interaction for the travel industry, since this is a sector of our interest and there is an evident distinction between low and high involved consumers (Liberman, Sagristano, & Trope, 2002). Besides social media proves to be a very convenient and innovative factor in travel, it is for instance used for information search and decision making (Zeng & Gerritsen, 2014).
Furthermore, social media is an interesting medium since it makes it able to measure the immediate effects of a marketing action, by for instance number of likes, followers and conversion rate. Besides, the interaction between brands and consumers on social media is different than for traditional media. This makes the psychological distance for advertisements most likely to differ as well, since people have a higher-level of involvement and lower-level of distance towards the advertisement on social media (Margalit, 2014).
The goal of this study is to measure differences between the advertisement of bundled and unbundled travel services on social media, when making use of CLT. From previous studies it is known that CLT is working in advertisement (Trope & Liberman, 2010), but what are the effects when it is used on social media. Kim, Kim, Kim and Magnini (2016) found evidence that time and space are crucial dimensions for use of psychological distance in travel. For this study we are interested in the effect CLT has on consumer engagement for bundled and unbundled travel services.
In this sense the following research question was formulated: What is the effect
of bundled and unbundled travel services on consumer engagement, when social media advertisements show different levels of psychological distance?
Method
In this study an experiment has been carried out among 314 participants, who regularly made vacation trips abroad. The experiment has been performed trough an online survey, in which different situations were drawn. In order to analyse the relation of the independent variables; bundled/unbundled and level of psychological distance on consumer engagement (DV), a multivariate MANOVA has been conducted.
Structure
This study consists of five chapters. The first part will provide a review on the relevant literature about social media, construal-level theory and bundled and unbundled services, in order to gain better understanding about the different concepts. The next chapter discusses the methodology used for the experiment, after which the results and discussion based on the data will be explained in the fourth chapter. Finally based on the results, the limitations and suggestions for future research will be discussed. To finalize with the conclusion and some managerial implications.
2. Literature review
This literature review will start by explaining what social media is and what its role is in advertising and the travel industry. After which it will take a closer look at the construal-level theory, which will be exposed from different angles. Furthermore, several studies which have been looking into CLT in advertising and travel industry will be discussed. As last, the different effects bundled or unbundled products have on psychological distance. Finally the literature review closes with four hypothesis and a conceptual model.
2.1 Social media
At this moment we all participate in an explosion of internet-based messages (Chaffey, 2016). Since this medium is almost everywhere, it is influencing our behavior on awareness, information acquisition, attitudes and purchase behavior (Mangold & Faulds, 2009).
There are many different explanations in literature that describe social media, but none of those corresponds with what we see as social media. The first definition is given by Mangold & Faulds (2009). They describe social media as; a wide range of online, word-of-mouth forums. Another definition is given by Kaplan & Haenlein (2010) in which they describe social media slightly different. They see it as a combination of Web 2.0 and User Generated Content (UGC). Web 2.0 can be distinguished by micro-content, which suggests that authors create small chunks of content like a blog, audio, video or wiki. This medium becomes more functional when people add more content.
Reviewing these different explanations of what social media is, none of them talks about social media as function of consumer engagement. It can be seen as a community that brings people of similar interests together. This study will therefore, describe social media as a combination of the explanations mentioned above: “Social media is a platform in which users
can generate their own content. It will become more successful when people started to interact more actively with one and other, these interactions will mainly happen between people with similar interests. Brands can take an active and leading role in these interaction”.
This study focusses on travel advertisements that are communicated through social media networks. The past years there has been an involvement in advertisements on social media. First, social media is becoming a hybrid element of the promotion mix. Since it combines brands talking to consumers and consumers talking to other consumers, also known as worth of mouth (Mangold & Faulds, 2009). Second, worth of mouth (WOM) has been an important driver for business success, even more than paid marketing. Managers have mainly been interested in how they can stimulate this electronic WOM (eWOM) within paid and regular advertisements (Pauwels, Aksehirli, & Lackman, 2016). This makes it more important to know how brands can stimulate eWOM by differentiating marketing activities on social media, in order to generate brand awareness and brand loyalty. This brand awareness and brand loyalty will convert into likes and conversion on social media brand page (Mochon, Johnson, Schwartz, & Ariely, 2016).
Another question to ask is what motivates people to follow a brand on social media and how do users impact other users on those sites. Buechel & Berger (2016) discuss three key reasons in their paper why consumers become engaged in social networks. The first is
affiliation, which is perhaps the most important motivator of online social network use. In
particular our desire to socialize and connect with others, since people have the need to belong to be part of a group. Besides, social relationships are critical for our wellbeing (Buechel & Berger, 2016). Online social networks support in this need, by allowing users to connect with one another and mainly with people who have similar needs and interests. The second motivator is self-expression and identity representation, here the social network allows users to share content such as biographical information, interests, activities and photos, in order to portray an online version of themselves (Buechel & Berger, 2016). The last factor is
information retrieval and dissemination, which focusses on the ability to access, gather and
spread information in a rapid and convenient way (Hoffman & Novak, 2012). Online communities and brand pages form therefore an auxiliary for people’s needs and desires (Buechel & Berger, 2016). Besides, when consumers became followers of brand social media
pages they tend to be more loyal and committed to the brand, but also they seem more open to receive information (De Vries, Gensler, & Leeflang, 2012). Also Mochon et al. (2016) found little support for the fact that people who like a brand page on social media are more engaged to the brand than the once who do not.
2.1.1 Social media advertisement
Mochon et al. (2016), found in their research that brand Facebook pages were most effective when they were used as a platform for brand initiated promotional communications. Price promotions can be seen as the most effective marketing tool for both online and offline sales activities and to increase market share (Grewal et al., 2011). They argue that liking the page, joining the brand community and being able to participate in eWOM did not influence the offline behavior of consumers. Mochon et al. (2016) say that generating offline behavior is more likely to happen when Facebook is used for traditional advertisement. This is because social media advertisement mainly attracts low-involved consumers, since the information they share is targeted for a wide audience. For these low-involved consumers promotional advertisements have most effect. Their study also shows that most consumers started liking a Facebook page in order to avoid missed opportunities, like rewards, information or promotions. Logan (2014) proves in his article as well that information seeking behavior is an important predictor of following a brand online.
An interesting finding comes from Logan (2014), were he proves that advertisers can benefit from the social network as well. Since consumers are more likely to respond to advertisements on their friends’ pages. Therefore, when a consumer likes a certain brand post their friends will automatically be less resistant towards that brand. As a result, consumers are more likely to visit the brand page than when the advertisement is sponsored. Besides, consumers trust the brand more, since their friends trust the brand as well (Logan, 2014). This indicates, that people have a lower-level of social distance towards advertisements that their friends like, them when no familiar persons have an opinion about the advertisement.
2.1.2 Social media in travel
This study mainly focusses on social media in travel and leisure. This industry is still emerging in terms of growth and development. There are a few areas on social media in which they significantly emerge like; information search, decision making behavior’s, promotions and interaction between consumers in a user to user way but also user to brand way (Zeng & Gerritsen, 2014). The power of travel brands and communities on social media is that they can help consumers in their travel planning, but also influence potential travellers in decisions making (Zeng & Gerritsen, 2014). Gretzel & Yoo (2008), stated that social media fundamentally changed the way that individuals plan and consume their travel. This massive change means that social media is challenging the existing consumer service, marketing and promotional activities in this industry.
In their research Zeng & Gerritsen (2014) mainly discussed UGC on social media in the travel industry and therefore leave out the part what travel brands can do best to create the most influential content on social media and therefore high consumer engagement. The goal of this study is to go more in depth on how brands can generate more consumer engagement on their social media pages or on their posts, according to the construal-level theory of Trope and Liberman (2010) and Trope, Liberman and Wakslak (2012).
2.2 Construal-level theory
Construal-level theory is a framework that links distance and abstraction and suggests that psychological distance is an important determinant used in evaluations through the central or peripheral route (Petty et al., 1983; Trope & Liberman, 2010). The research of Petty et al. (1983) give support for the following theory; people use concrete, low-level construal’s for near events and abstract, high-level construal’s for distant events. Low-level events can be described as concrete and contextualized representations that include inferior and incidental feature events. High-level construal is abstract, schematic and decontextualized representations that extract the essence of information (Eyal & Liberman, 2012).
When judging an event this event can be represented through different dimensions, also known as the dimensions of psychological distance. The first one is time or temporal
distance, research has shown that distant future events are represented in a more abstract,
structured and higher-level manner than near future events (Eyal & Liberman, 2012; Trope et al., 2007). An example could be that for a vacation that will happen tomorrow, consumers will think in a more concrete way, like; which beaches I should visit and what clothes will I take with me. While thinking about a vacation next year will be more abstract and could therefore be about relaxing and having fun. The second dimension is space or spatial distance, which explains that when people perceive an event in a spatially distant location, they will have a more abstract mind set. While, when the event is spatially close they will encounter a more concrete mind set. For social distance people will have a more abstract mind when behavior is performed by a dissimilar other, then when someone is similar to that person. The last dimension is probability, this explains the probability that an event or situation could happen to you as person. Events with a high-probability are seen as more concrete and therefore have a low-level of involvement, while events with a low-probability of happening to you can be seen as more abstract and therefore have a high-level of involvement (Trope et al., 2007).
Besides these four dimensions there are several other factors which indicate distant or near level of construal. For instance pictorial messages versus verbal messages, pictures are seen as a concrete representations while words are more abstract (Trope et al., 2007). Another dimension which can give us a good indication is desirability versus feasibility. When an event is desirable, it involves the value of the action’s end-state and is therefore high-level. Feasibility on the other hand directs us towards the means to reach the end-state and can therefore be seen as low-level (Liberman & Trope, 1998).
Fiedler (2007) gives a review on the theories of Trope, Liberman & Wakslak (2007), in which he stated that there are many more dimensions besides time, space, social and probability which are also psychologically important. The first one is informational distance, defined in terms of amount of knowledge or relevant data that consumers possess. Here
applies, the lesser the distance to an object, the denser the amount of information. Second is
experiential distance, which is based on the information available to the consumer. Third is affective distance and can be related to social distance. It is based on the type of advertisement
via which consumers learn about a vacation on for instance a “warm” picture or through a “cold” descriptive text. The last dimension is perspective distance and can be seen as the influence of commitment (Fiedler, 2007). Which is about the effort a consumer already has put into a certain activity, when discussing travel, factors like the costs he compared for his flight, recommendations he viewed on hotels from referrals or friends.
The outcomes of this study are an excellent completion to the study of Trope, Liberman & Wakslak (2007), but also to this study which focusses more on information and social connections in social media. Aspects the study of Fiedler (2007) explains more elaborated than only the construal-level theory of Trope and Liberman (2010).
2.2.1 CLT in the travel industry
There has already been done some research on construal-level theory in the travel industry, in particular the hotel industry (Kim et al., 2016). They found that effective promotion of products and services in the travel industry is crucial for brand success. In their research they used two types of psychological distance; time and space. These dimensions have an influence on the preferred promotional messages used in advertisement in the travel industry (Trope et al., 2007). Kim et al. (2016) found that consumers prefer concrete descriptions of their vacation for a near future event. Furthermore, they found evidence that pictorial information resulted in more positive attitude when the construal-level was a relatively far destination. Whenever the information was provided verbally, consumers preferred the opposite.
2.2.2 CLT in advertisement
In order to provide more knowledge on how construal-level theory works on social media we first take a look at the influence CLT has on regular advertisements. Dhar and Kim (2007) indicate in their study that CLT can determine whether a specific action is interpreted in terms
of goal progress or goal commitment regarding the set of factors. CLT distinguishes between a high-level identification in which an activity is linked to its superordinate purpose and a low-level identification in which an activity is linked to its subordinate means. This indicates that construal-level would determine the interpretation of an action (Dhar & Kim, 2007) meaning the message distinguished in an advertisement could lead to premeditated options. For example, Chakravarti, Janiszewski and Ulkumen (2006) found that information or attributes that were used in the creation stage are neglected in the choice stage. Past research indicates that CLT is an important factor in this stage to explain different types of attributes, which affects the favourability later on in the process (Dhar & Kim, 2007). Therefore, CLT has an important role in advertisement and the decision making process of consumers.
Temporal construal is one of the psychological distances which is most often used in advertisements (Martin, Gnoth & Strong 2009). Here a distinction is made between future oriented consumers and present oriented consumers. Future oriented consumers plan and feel responsible for their own future, also they engage in planning and considering how spending behavior impacts those plans. Advertisements for these consumers are focused on the distant future and mainly show primary attributes. While present oriented consumers adopt a more reactive approach in life, they are sensitive to impulse purchases and seek to satisfy immediate wants and needs. Advertisements for this consumer group mostly focusses on the near future and secondary attributes (Martin, Gnoth, & Strong, 2009).
By all means, CLT is used on many different aspects in advertisement. This study will therefore focus on two types of psychological distance; temporal distance and social distance. Temporal distance since it already plays an important role in travel advertising (Kim et al., 2016), but the effects of bundled versus unbundled products and effect of usage of temporal distance in social media advertising is still unknown. We choose for social distance, since social media is all about social (Kietzmann et al., 2011). It suggests that Facebook news feed and timeline pages play disparate roles in moderating the effectiveness of messages that are framed in high or low-level of construal (Kim, Sung, Lee, Choi & Sung, 2016).
CLT is used a lot in traditional advertisements, but what are the effects when it is used in social media advertisements. Kim et al. (2016) studied the effect of matching advertising-message framing with the psychological distance a user has to a Facebook page increases the likelihood of a favourable evaluation on the advertisement and the brand. They found that individuals felt a greater psychologically proximal distance to the timeline (relatively private page that can be accessed by close friends) than to the newsfeed (relatively open place where users can connect read and post to other users). Messages framed in a newsfeed page responded more favourably to the abstract and desirable message than towards a low construal-level message. In contrast, individuals presented with a timeline page showed more favourably reactions towards low-level construal terms (Kim et al., 2016).
Time is an important factor used in the travel industry. Kim at al. (2016) found support for the fact that consumers prefer concrete descriptions (low-level of construal) when their vacation was a near future event. Therefore, we hypothesize that the effect will be the opposite in abstract descriptions. Besides, this effect will be tested for social media. According to Kim et al. (2016) people like advertisements on their timeline better when they include a low-level of construal. It is proposed that advertisements posted by brands, that clarify a message low in social distance generate a higher number of likes than messages which are high in social distance.
H1: Advertisements on social media showing a low-level of temporal distance leads to higher consumer engagement than when an advertisement shows a high-level of temporal distance. H2: People with a low-level of temporal distance react more favourable in terms of consumer engagement when the level of social distance in the advertisement is low than when the level of social distance is high.
2.3 Bundled versus unbundled travel services
Since this study is completely focused on the travel industry a distinctive product category needed to be chosen, therefore bundled and unbundled travel services had been picked. Bundling is when two or more products (goods and/or services) are sold as a single package. Unbundled products are goods and/or services which were sold individually (Paun, 1993). The travel industry is known for its packaged vacations in which consumers get offered a flight, accommodation, car rental and activities in one. Operators who offer these services are brands like Sunweb, TUI, Fox and Beachmasters. Unbundled travel activities on the other hand are operators who offer a single service within the travel industry. These are brands like KLM for airplane tickets, Airbnb for accommodations and Sixt for car rental.
Bundling is an often used selling technique. Especially bundling of unrelated products can be very profitable. This has to do with the law of large numbers, which average out unusually high and low valuations and therefore results in a demand curve that is more elastic. This makes it for brands easier to predict consumer’s valuation for a bundle than for individual products (Bakos & Brynjolfsson, 1999). Bundling makes it therefore possible to achieve greater sales, greater economic efficiency and greater profits per goods.
According to Paun (1993) consumers prefer buying a bundled product when they believe that substantial time and money will be saved. Purchasing a bundle simplifies the consumers shopping task, because it eliminates the need to compare alternatives. This effect particularly occurs among consumers who are less motivated to process information (Harris & Blair, 2006). Also consumers who have little knowledge about a bundled product may view a single point of purchase less risky, because components in the specific bundle will work seamlessly together. On the other hand, consumers might prefer unbundled products for different reasons. First, when an industry matures, people might find the task of assembling less hard and therefore takes less time and effort. Second, consumers want to become more heterogeneous, since the needs and wants of buyers differ widely (Paun, 1993; Bearne, 2016).
Not everybody sees bundles as a positive sales mechanism. Venkatesh & Mahajan (1993) argue that bundles present a higher risk of waste. This is because the risk of losing money when not every item in the bundle is used, reduces the value of the bundle. Harris and Blair (2006) are more positive on bundling, because consumers may perceive a lower risk since the products in the bundle are selected and brought together carefully. They also found that people with lower involvement and less security about product knowledge choose for bundled options. In other words, bundled products and services simplify the decision task (Harris & Blair, 2006).
2.3.1 Bundled and unbundled products in the travel industry
In the travel industry, bundled and unbundled products are a commonly used service. Bundled products give both benefits to consumers and suppliers. Consumers benefit because of their convenient pricing strategies, travel providers benefit because the bundled options increase the attractiveness of the included products. Suppliers prefer this option since it can help save distribution and transaction costs (Kim, Kim & Kim, 2017). Besides, it is in fact efficient for selling empty rooms in hotels or empty seats at airplanes. Especially for this industry this is highly effective, considering the perishability of goods and services. That is why lots of suppliers offer their products to online travelling agencies (OTA) in order to boost their sales (Kim, Kim & Kim, 2017). Further can bundling be seen as an important marketing tool in which marketers decide how many products to bundle and at which price to sell them, taking consumer preferences into account (Stremersch & Tellis, 2002).
2.3.2 CLT in bundled services
Park and Jang (2016) found in their research that the longer the temporal distance, the more counterfactual thinking potential travellers will experience when buying bundled travel packages. Counterfactual thinking will be experienced when the tendency to imagine, might have been or considered as an unrealized alternative to the present (Roese & Olson, 1997). Counterfactual thinking involves a situation and an alternative that could result in a better or
worse outcome. The results of this study suggest that temporal distance has a significant and positive influence on counterfactual thinking. When the temporal distance is longer, more counterfactual thinking will be experienced (Park & Jang, 2016). According to Trope, Liberman and Wakslak (2007) this means that consumers who have a high-level of construal according to time, they will be more careful considered too price of the bundled product far away from the department date (Park & Jang, 2016). Because of the nature of travel products, temporal distance generally exists between date of purchase and date of experience. Which means that temporal distance is almost inevitable, therefore promotions should vary between different moments of purchase (Park & Jang, 2016). The more favourable a travel service is promoted according to temporal construal, the higher the purchase intentions are.
Banerjee (2016) did research after the role of peer group environment as an influencing factor in purchase decisions in premium-sales promotions provided as freebies. Freebies are products or services which are given for free when purchasing a product and can therefore be seen as a bundle. Especially since the rise of social media. Now consumers have the ability to get to know the place before going there. This can be done through travel sites, brand social media pages, reviews, google maps et cetera. Consumers have the need for personalization and authentic experiences, which made the consumer mentality shift from “tourist” to “traveller” (Fitzpatrick, 2015).
This phenomenon made travel bundles less interesting against unbundled travel options. For these bundled travel agencies to survive they have to engage with their target audience better. Therefore, those possibilities on social media need to be explored, by means of two factors of psychological distance; temporal distance and social distance.
Based on different theories, the following hypothesis were created. For the third hypothesis Fiedler (2007) said that people who buy bundled products have a lower-level of involvement, meaning that they spend less time and attention to booking their holiday. Moreover, this means that buying a bundled option reduced the amount of time needed for booking a holiday,
Therefore, advertisements showing a low-level of temporal distance will be more attractive for bundled travel agencies. The fourth hypothesis can be explained by the fact that online WOM becomes more important into finding a personal vacation. Low social distance is of importance in these situations.
H3: Social media advertisements using low temporal distance, have a more positive effect on consumer engagement for bundled travel agencies then for unbundled travel agencies. H4: Social media advertisements using low social distance, have a more positive effect on consumer engagement for unbundled travel agencies than for bundled travel agencies.
2.4 Conceptual model
According to the previous literature and prepared hypothesis, the following conceptual model has been created:
Psychological distance
Consumer engagement
Attitude towards the ad Attitude towards the brand
Purchase Intentions
Bundled & Unbundled travel services
H1& H2 H3&
3. Methodology
In this section the methodology will be explained. The first item that will be discussed is the research design, the results of the pre-test and changes made according to the pre-test. Furthermore, in the following section each of the variables used in this study and how they were tested in the experiment are explained. As last, the sample of this study is explained in depth.
3.1 Research design
The goal of this study is to measure if the use of psychological distance in social media advertisements has an effect on consumer engagement towards bundled and unbundled travel agencies. This gives an indication for attitude towards the advertisement, attitude towards the brand, but also purchase intentions people have when seeing an advertisement. Besides, these measures give a good indication for consumer behavior (Spears & Singh, 2004). In this study two types of psychological distance will be tested; temporal distance and social distance. These factors will be tested according to a cross-sectional experimental survey design. The design consists of a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subject factorial design.
This study is done in Qualtrics, an online survey program. This makes the experiment an online lab experiment, which has a high-level of control and high internal validity. In the experiment two treatments groups have been manipulated. At the beginning of the survey the participants were randomly allocated towards one of two conditions, while all other variables are controlled for and can therefore be called true-experiment. In both manipulated conditions the participants were introduced to a fictions brand called VIE. In the bundled condition VIE is described as a travel agency who offers full-arranged vacations, from flight till accommodation till activities. In the unbundled condition participants are introduced to VIE as an organization which only offers accommodations (hotels, apartments, hostels etc.) abroad. Both groups are shown an impression of VIE´s website, which is different for both conditions. After being randomly assigned to one of the two groups, participants were again randomly
assigned to one of four conditions. Each condition represents a certain level of psychological distance, see Table 1.
Table 1, conditions of psychological distance in experiment
High temporal distance Low temporal distance
High social distance High temporal & High social
distance
Low temporal & High social distance
Low social distance High temporal & Low social
distance
Low temporal & Low social distance
After showing a text which manipulated participants into one of the four conditions by telling a little story corresponding to the level of psychological distance. Second an advertisement in accordance with the level of psychological distance is shown to each participants. After that, participants were asked questions about the attitude towards the advertisement, their attitude towards the brand VIE and their purchase intentions. These factors together give an indication for consumer engagement (Zhang & Zinkhan, 2006).
In the experiment Croatia was mentioned as imaginary vacation destination, since it is a European country and therefore gives participants a familiar feeling, but it is not as familiar as Spain, France or Italy. This hopefully diminishes the spatial distance as much as possible for all participants (Trope & Liberman, 2010). But also the probability of ever going there on a vacation should be equal (Trope & Liberman, 2010). Because the probability of visiting Indonesia is too low, while the probability of visiting England is maybe too high.
In order to generate as less bias as possible, the participants are introduced to a fake travel brand called VIE. In which they will hopefully create their own imaginations about the brand and is therefore unlikely to make associations that could interfere with the reliability of the results.
3.1.1 Pre-test
In order to test the accessibility, reliability and validity, a pre-test was done among 12 participants. Most of them provided feedback on the experiment, therefore several changes
someone gets to see the advertisement. The reliability of the experiment was difficult to test, due to the fact that this experiment contains eight conditions. Therefore, each condition has only been made once or twice. This was the same for the validity. In order to create a higher-level of reliability and validity the texts that were shown to manipulate each participants, were made a little more extreme, to ensure that participants not only rate conditions in the middle.
3.2 Use and measurements of variables
In this study the effect of the independent variables on the dependent variables is tested, including some moderating or control variables which will strengthen or weaken the tested effect.
3.2.1 Dependent variable
What this study tries to measure is the effect that use of psychological distance has on online advertisements in bundled and unbundled travel services. This effect will be measured according to attitude towards the advertisement, attitude towards the brand and purchase intentions (Spears & Singh, 2004; Zhang & Zinkhan, 2006). Spears and Singh (2004), mention several indicators for consumer engagement in their article. Measurements that have been used for attitude towards the advertisement; Useful/Useless, Attractive/Unattractive, Good/Bad, Favourable/ Unfavourable, Interesting/Uninteresting and Valuable/Worthless. For the attitude towards the brand; Positive/Negative, Appealing/Unappealing, Good/Bad, Favourable/Unfavourable, Desirable/Undesirable and Valuable/Worthless. The last scale measures was purchase intentions; Unlikely/Likely, Impossible/Possible, Never/Definitely and Low purchase interest/High purchase interest. These measures give reliable indications for consumers brand awareness and brand engagement (Leventhal, Wallace, Buil, & Chernatony, 2014; Mochon et al., 2016). When people are more engaged or when awareness is created for the travel brands online, they are more likely to consider it in making an actual buying decision (Leventhal et al., 2014). This measurement is therefore, called consumer engagement.
3.2.2 Independent variable
There are two independent variables manipulated in this experiment, first is type of travel agency and second is psychological distance.
When entering the experiment participants were randomly assigned to one of two groups. The first group represents bundled travel services. They are shown a text which assumes that they are willing to visit Croatia in the upcoming vacation and that they are most likely going to book this vacation with the fictitious travel brand VIE. VIE is an organization that offers bundled vacations. Participants are given some examples of organizations, reasons to choose for this organization and a snapshot of their website. This is the same for the second variable, unbundled travel agencies. Here participants are introduced to VIE as a travel brand that offers accommodations. In appendix 5, an overview of the different conditions is shown.
After the first manipulation, participants were shown a second manipulation, which was one of the following levels of psychological distance; High temporal/High social, Low temporal/High social, High temporal/Low social and Low temporal/Low social (Trope et al., 2007). Within each condition a different type of text and advertisement is shown. In appendix 6 an overview is shown of each tested condition. In these conditions the level of social distance and temporal distance were manipulated according to different factors. Social distance was manipulated due to the fact that friends liked and responded to the specific advertisement (Eyal & Liberman, 2012). Temporal distance on the other hand was manipulated according to time of departure. This was either in two weeks or at the end of summer (August or September), the experiment was conducted half May. So for the high condition, the participants vacation would be in three till four months, while for the low distance conditions their vacation would be in one or two weeks (Eyal & Liberman, 2012). Besides, in the advertisement where low-temporal distance was trigged more concrete words were used, where in the high low-temporal distance condition more abstract words were used (Liberman & Trope, 1998).
3.2.3 Control variables
This study includes different standard control variables like; age, gender and education level. Besides, we also inserted variables like; use of social media when searching for vacations, annual number of vacations and different factors that should indicate the level of involvement that participants have according to booking a vacation. Here questions were asked like; do you enjoy doing research for a vacation and do you enjoy spending time on finding deals. With these factors it should be able to control for differences and draw conclusions.
3.3 Sampling
In this experiment a non-probability sampling technique was used for the selection of participants. For this experiment the only requirement was that the participant sometimes go on vacation to a foreign country. This requirement has been made in the introduction of the experiment, as well as in the text which includes the link to the survey. Participants of the experiment have not been told about the purpose of this study, since this could lead to biases. As sampling technique, snowball-sampling is used in this experiment. Friends and family were asked to share the survey throughout their social media accounts, in order to generate more responses. Furthermore, the survey had been shared in private social media groups on Facebook which are specified in travelling. In appendix 7, an overview is included of all private groups the survey had been shared in and the number of users each group has.
In total this experiment should include a minimum of 240 participants. Therefore, each group should consist of at least 30 participants, 40 participants would be optimal. In table 2 an overview off the number of participants who were divided into each condition is shown.
Table 2, overview of conditions a preferred number of participants
Bundled travel services Unbundled travel services High temporal distance Low temporal distance High temporal distance Low temporal distance High social distance N=41 N=37 N=39 N=39 Low Social distance N=39 N=40 N=41 N=38
4. Results
This chapter will describe the analysis and results of this study. First some common insights about the population of the experiment will be given. Second, the interpretation of the data preparation and missing values. After which the recoding of counter-indicative items will be explained as well as the other coding. Furthermore, a Cronbach Alpha has been done to test the reliability and validity of the study. When the reliability and validity had been tested, a correlation analysis was executed on the most used variables. Last, all hypothesis had been tested through a MANOVA. At last, the results will be discussed.
4.1 Data cleaning and missing values
In this dataset no missing values were found, since they were treated as incomplete surveys and were therefore immediately excluded from the dataset. In total 404 participants took the survey, of which 85 were excluded due to incompleteness, most cases were excluded because participants stopped at the introduction page. This made a total of 319 participants. Furthermore, cases that were taken in less than two minutes were excluded from the dataset as well. Since this amount of time is too short in order to answer the questions thoughtfully. This made a total of 314 cases which could be analysed in SPSS.
4.2 Demographic factors
In total 314 persons participated in the experiment, of which 79.7 percent were females. Most participants, 47 percent were in the age group between 18 and 24. Another large age group who participated was between the age of 45 and 54, they make up for 12 percent of this study. By interpreting this results we see a normal distribution which is positively skewed. When looking at education, only 30 percent of the participants had a bachelor degree or more, which made the education level of participants moderate to low.
4.3 Coding and recoding
Before analysing the results, some coding had to be done. First, bundled versus unbundled travel services had to be coded in dummy variables. The same has been done for level of psychological distance. This made further analysis easier, because now it should be possible to separate specific items from the rest.
In the experiment participants were asked for different factors; attitude toward the brand, attitude towards the advertisement and purchase interest. These factors were measured by six or four different scales. In order to analyse and draw results from these scales, they should be computed into one mean. A Cronbach Alpha had been done for these measurement scales to test if they are reliable and valid, which will be explained more into depth in the next paragraph.
At last some items had a counter-indicative measurement scale. This was the case for purchase intentions and therefore needed to be reverse coded. All items in this measurement scale were reversed in order to withhold participants filling out answers on the automatic pilot. This was also checked in the SPSS file, fortunately the answers of the first two measurement scales matched with the third measurement scale after reverse coding them.
4.4 Normality and reliability check
When checking the measurement scales, we tested for several analysis. The first one is a normality check, in order to see if the data were normally distributed. We found that age, education and use of social media were normally distributed. When checking the measurement scales for attitude toward the advertisement, attitude towards the brand and purchase intentions, it could be concluded that only purchase intentions were not normally distributed due to skewness and kurtosis. But when taking these measures into account separately for each level of involvement, they were all normally distributed.
4.4.1 Cronbach Alpha
The measurement scale used in the experiment to measure consumer engagement towards a social media advertisement has a high reliability, with Cronbach’s Alpha of 0,824. The corrected item-total correlations indicate that all items have a correlation with a total score above 0,30. Moreover, none of the items would substantially affect reliability if they were deleted (Table 3).
Table 3, Cronbach Alpha for levels of psychological distance Mean Std. deviation Corrected Item-Total Correlation Cronbach Alpha if item deleted Attitude towards brand 4.693 1.000 0.768 0.683 Attitude towards brand 4.803 1.030 0.716 0.727 Purchase intentions 3.980 1.300 0.596 0.875
When checking for reliability on level of involvement for the control variables, it was found that this measurement scale has a Cronbach Alpha of 0,542. When removing this fourth measurement scale; “I always book my vacations with travel agencies like; Sunweb, TUI, Thomas Cook and Expedia”, the measurement scale gets a Cronbach Alpha of 0,793. Which is a reliable scale, actually it is rather logic to remove this question due to the fact that it is measuring something different than the other three measurements.
4.5 Correlation matrix
In order to give an overview of the variables used in the upcoming analysis a correlation matrix was conducted with the variables’ means, standard deviations and reliability values (Table 4). Table 4. Demographic Variables, Dependent variables: Descriptive statistics and correlations
Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 1. Age 3.06 1.335 - 2. Education 3.97 1.360 .013 - 3. SM use 2.58 1.079 .038 .053 - 4. Level of involvement 2.366 1.234 -.192** .002 .205** - 5. Attitude towards ad 4.803 1.030 -.077 .039 -.186** -.067 - 6. Attitude towards brand 4.693 1.000 .131* -.001 -.174** -.062 .778** - 7. Purchase intentions 3.980 1.299 .203** .061 -.083 .036 .533** .591** -
4.6 Testing hypotheses
In this study a general linear model (GLM) analysis has been executed in order to measure the different hypothesis. The dependent variable; consumer engagement, is measured by means of three measurement scales; attitude towards the advertisement, attitude towards the brand and purchase intentions (Spears & Singh, 2004). In this study all indicators will be discussed separately. As independent variable the four different levels of psychological distance will be used. Moreover, dummy variables had been created in order to measure the separate effects of social distance and temporal distance. The model as a whole is significant, [F (18, 313) = 1.833, p = .021].
The effect of temporal distance on consumer engagement (H1)
Participants in the experiment were asked to rate an advertisement from a certain point of view, which is one of four categories explained in table 2. After seeing one of these advertisements, the participants had to rate this advertisement on basis of three different measurements, indicating consumer engagement. A GLM had been executed, in order to compare the effect of high and low-level of temporal distance on consumer engagement.
On the basis of the analysis, according to Pillai-Bartlett a main effect between temporal distance and consumer engagement (V =.963, F (3,795) =3,00 p<.o5) is present. Contradictory with the hypothesis, a main effect of temporal distance is absent when measuring psychological distance on consumer engagement [F (1, 313) = .816 p= .486]. When analysing the dependent variable more into depth it can be seen that attitude towards the advertisement has almost a significant main effect on temporal distance alone [F (1, 313) = 3.692, p = .056]. Furthermore, attitude towards the advertisement also has a significant main effect on psychological distance as a whole [F (3, 313) = 4.143, p = .007]. The other variables included in consumer engagement were not significant; attitude towards the brand [F (3,313) = 1.508, p = .212] and purchase intentions [F (3,313) = .648, p = .585]. When analysing temporal distance and its relation with consumer engagement more into depth, through a pairwise comparison it can be concluded that also here only attitude towards the advertisement is significant (MD = 1.055, SE = .357, p
< .005). This indicates a positive relation towards the use of low-temporal distance in an advertisement.
Since only attitude towards the advertisement has a significant effect on use of low-temporal distance, H1 is partly accepted. The result is therefore, that use of low low-temporal distance has a small effect on consumer engagement in social media advertisements for travel agencies.
The role of social distance on consumer engagement, when time is involved (H2)
In order to test the second hypothesis, temporal distance is compared in relation with social distance and what their contribution is towards consumer engagement in social media advertising.
When analysing a pairwise comparison, it can be seen that some levels of psychological distance have a significant effect on each other. Taking consumer engagement into account we see that when people have a low-level of temporal distance, there is a significant difference between the use of high-social distance (MD = .713, SE = .346, p < .05). Furthermore, a marginally significant effect can be seen when the advertisement contains a low-level of social distance, between the level of temporal distance that people possess (MD = -.684, SE = .349, p = .051). Analysing the results of consumer engagement more into depth, we know that attitude towards the advertisement and attitude towards the brand are significant. If people have a low-level of temporal distance towards a social media advertisement from a travel agency, use of social distance is important considering attitude towards the advertisement (MD = 1.367, SE = .368, p < .oo1). When taking attitude towards the brand into account this effect is significant as well (MD = .814, SE = .360, p < .05). On the other hand, when social media advertisements make use of low social distance, the use of temporal distance is crucial. For either attitude towards the brand (MD = -.764, SE = .364, p < .05) and attitude towards the advertisement (MD = 1.598, SE = .496, p = .001), only purchase intentions (MD = -.087, SE = .473, p > .05) do not have a significant effect.
From figure 1 it becomes clear that attitude towards the advertisement and attitude towards the brand are strongly influenced by the level of temporal distance towards a vacation of the time appointed in the advertisement. Moreover, that an advertisement in that situation shows a low-level of social distance, and people can therefore indicate themselves with it.
When taking the hypothesis into consideration, it can be concluded that use of low-social distance is not always the main factor for the highest consumer engagement. This depends on the level of temporal distance which is used. In our case, the results align with the second hypothesis and therefore, H2 is accepted. Because, the results are significant for difference between use of low and high-social distance (MD = -.713, SE = .346, p < .05) in relation to consumer engagement.
Figure 1. Use of low social distance in advertisements
The effect temporal distance has on advertisements from bundled services (H3)
In order to test the third hypothesis a multivariate GLM was conducted on the influence of two dependent variables (travel agency and level of psychological distance) on consumer engagement (dependent variable).
When analysing the estimated marginal means of consumer engagement, we can see some interaction in the data (figure 2). The third hypothesis proposed that when use of temporal distance in advertisements is low, it will have a mere positive effect on bundled travel services than unbundled travel services. From the estimated marginal means it can be seen
3,4 3,6 3,8 4 4,2 4,4 4,6 4,8 L O W S O C I A L / L O W T E M P O R A L L O W S O C I A L / H I G H T E M P O R A L
that when use of temporal distance in social media advertisements is low, bundled travel services react more positive than unbundled travel services.
Unfortunately, the main effect for level of psychological distance and type of travel agency yielded an F ratio of F(3, 303)=.483, p>.05, indicating a non-significant relation between type of travel agencies, level of psychological distance and consumer engagement towards an advertisement. Due to the fact that the main effect was non-significant, there was no significant interaction effect as well. Besides, partial η2 is smaller than .06 which concludes that coefficients that quantify the associations between the dependent and independent variables have a low effect size. Moreover, according to the post-hoc test, which was conducted without taking the control variables into account, the results showed that neither one of the levels of psychological distance differ significantly from each other when taking both independent variables into account.
Since the main effect between type of travel agency and level of psychological distance did not have a significant main effect. H3 is rejected, since there was a significant difference in use of level of psychological distance, but not between type of travel agency F (1, 303) =.599, p>.05, neither when both independent variables are included in the analysis. It can be concluded that there is no real difference in type of advertisement for bundled and unbundled travel services when taking temporal distance into account.
Figure 2. Estimated marginal mean of consumer engagement (psychological distance)
3,6 3,7 3,8 3,9 4 4,1 4,2 4,3 4,4 4,5 4,6 4,7 H I G H S O C I A L / H I G H T E M P O R A L L O W S O C I A L / H I G H T E M P O R A L H I G H S O C I A L / L O W T E M P O R A L L O W S O C I A L / L O W T E M P O R A L Bundled Unbundled
The effect social distance has on advertisements from unbundled services (H4)
Taking figure 2 into consideration we can see that unbundled travel services have a more positive effect on consumer behavior when use of social distance is low in comparison to when social distance is high. This interaction is contrary for bundled travel services, while in situations when temporal distance is high bundled and unbundled services are quite similar to one another. This effect occurs for both low and high conditions of social distance.
But, due to the fact that the main effect between type of travel agency and level of psychological distance did not significantly differ, no conclusions can be stated from this analysis. Therefore, H4 is rejected as well.
5. Discussion
In this part of the study, the results will be reviewed. First by analysing and stating conclusions about the different hypothesis, after which the research question will be answered. Closing with the managerial and theoretical contributions and implications.
5.1 General discussion
The core of this study was to examine the relationship between level of psychological distance and consumer engagement and how this relationship was affected by type of travel agency. In table 5 an overview is shown of the different hypothesis that were tested in this study. In this part we will take a closer look at the hypothesis, and why they propose certain outcomes. Table 5. Overview of hypothesis
Hypothesis Accepted or rejected H1: Advertisements on social media showing a low-level of temporal
distance leads to higher consumer engagement than when an advertisement shows a high-level of temporal distance.
Partly accepted
H2: People with a low-level of temporal distance react more favourable in
terms of consumer engagement when the level of social distance in the advertisement is low than when the level of social distance is high.
Accepted
H3: Social media advertisements of bundled travel agencies have a more
positive effect on consumer engagement than advertisements of unbundled travel agencies, when use of temporal distance is low.
Rejected
H4: Social media advertisements of unbundled travel agencies have a
more positive effect on consumer engagement than advertisements for bundled travel agencies, when use of social distance is low.
Rejected
To start with the first hypothesis, which is partly accepted. The hypothesis proposes that advertisements showing a low-level of temporal distance, leads to higher consumer engagement than advertisements showing a high-level of temporal distance. The dependent variable in this study is consumer engagement, which consist of three variables. One of them is attitude towards the advertisement. This part of the dependent variable has a significant score in relation to psychological distance p<.005. From the pairwise comparison it can be concluded that low-temporal distance has a positive effect on attitude towards the
advertisement, while high-temporal distance has a negative effect. Indicating that people react more favourably towards advertisements showing a low-level of temporal distance. Zhang (1996) found in his study that people with a low-level of involvement react most favourable towards advertisements containing humor. But these people react less favourable towards the brand, also their purchase intentions are less affected by it. This can be the same for use of temporal distance in an advertisement and the fact that this will only have a significant effect on attitude towards the advertisement and not towards the brand and purchase intentions (Zhang, 1996). Liberman, Idson & Higgins (2005) might give an explanation for the fact that attitude towards the brand and purchase intentions are not supported for this hypothesis. Namely, they found for support for the fact promotion framed advertisements appeal more when a purchase is in the distant future. This supports the non-significant relation for purchase intentions on low-temporal distance advertisements. Also Martin, Gnoth and Strong (2009) found in their study that people who are very present oriented are sensitive to impulse purchases and seek to satisfy immediate wants and needs. These immediate wants and needs can be satisfied by seeking an advertisement, while for purchase intentions booking a vacation is not easily seen as an impulse purchase. This could be a reason that purchase intentions did not have a significant score.
The second hypothesis is accepted, because consumer engagement had a significant effect on use of low-social distance for people with a low-level of temporal distance. When analysing the different factors of consumer engagement more closely, it is stated that only purchase intentions did not have a significant effect. These results show that when promoting a holiday in the near future, use of low-social distance is important. Moreover, these results align with the theory of Liberman, Idson and Higgins (2005) as well. They show that people only have higher purchase intentions when an event is temporally distant. Furthermore, Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) already appointed in their study that social media has a massive influence on how people book their vacations. Since consumers are influenced easily by other consumers, mainly by people who are close to them and therefore have a low-level of social distance
towards that specific person. These results are supported in this study, because use of low-social distance in advertisements score significantly higher than use of high low-social distance. Especially when their temporal distance is low. At the end, vacations or the advertisement about vacations stay hard to interpret, since vacations always have a certain amount of temporal distance before they actually take place. This effect is even bigger when the event is going to take place in the distant future. Therefore, time of purchase and time of consummation are almost never at the same time (Sanchez, Callarisa, Rodriguez, & Moliner, 2006). Which could affect the purchase intentions, but also consumer engagement.
Both the third and fourth hypothesis were not significant in this study. When studying the results of the GLM analysis more into depth, we can conclude several factors. First, when studying the test of between-subjects effect, it shows that type of travel agency does not have a significant effect on consumer engagement. Neither does the interaction between type of travel agency and level of psychological distance on consumer engagement. Based on this study it will mean that there are no significant differences between both bundled or unbundled vacation advertisements and the level of psychological distance these advertisements use. When taking the existing literature of this study into account we know that buying a bundle saves time and simplifies the task (Paun, 1993; Harris & Blair, 2006). Furthermore, Park and Jang (2016) found in their research that when people buy bundled travel services for in the distant future, the level of counterfactual thinking increases. This could indicate that bundled travel services should have a more positive influence on consumer engagement when the level of temporal distance is low. Moreover, Fiedler (2007) found that unbundled travel services were supported by social factors, mainly social factors which are low in social distance.
From previous studies we know that not much research have been done on this topic. Therefore, there are almost no results to compare this study with. But according to the literature of this study, the hypothesis should have been significant.
Other reasons for these hypothesis not to be significant could be, for instance that the explanation for bundled and unbundled travel agencies was not explained thoroughly enough.
