Luxury Consumption and Digital Marketing

This chapter focuses on the potential impact that the type of luxury tourism consumption may have on digital communication strategies of luxury hotels. Through a qualitative approach, the present study investigates how “internalized” (i.e., driven by individual style) versus “externalized” (i.e., driven by status symbols) luxury tourists’ motivations show up in the hospitality-related online context. Specifically, the chapter sheds light on how those two luxury consumption motivations lead tourists to share online different textual contents. Findings show that the internalized luxury motivations seem to mainly drive tourists’ experiences in luxury hotels, when shared online. The chapter discusses potential reasons for such a characterization and provides managerial suggestions for luxury tourism companies that want to target internalized versus externalized luxury tourists.