Social Media and Diaspora Tourism Intentions Among Malaysian Chinese in Klang Valley: The Moderating Role of Intergeneration

Diaspora tourism emphasizes the cultural ties between migrants and their homelands. Against the background of post-Covid and the widespread of social media, this study explores the relationship between social media engagement and diaspora tourism intentions, especially among third/fourth-generation Malaysian Chinese in the Klang valley. Based on stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory, it constructed a framework with three variables: social media engagement, destination image, and tourist intentions. After collecting questionnaires and analyzing the data using covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM), the findings revealed that social media engagement with the cultural homeland significantly influenced diaspora tourism intentions. Generation was proved to be a moderator, and destination image was a mediator in this process. Generational differences in the diaspora were polarized in attitudes toward the preferences of media engagement and the ancestral homeland’s destination image. The results have implications for reviving transnational travel and making informed choices about media in the post-epidemic tourism.