Customers’ Incivility in Digital and Social Media Marketing Platforms: Implications for Agritourism Business Growth in Zimbabwe

This qualitative book chapter will explore the concept of customers’ incivility in digital and social media marketing platforms and its implications for the growth of agritourism businesses in Zimbabwe. Customer incivility refers to intentional or unintentional thoughtless, abusive speech, aggression and disturbing behaviours by customers. Such behaviours may include verbal assaults, insulting comments, hate speech, anger, racism and frustrations. Due to the developments in information technology customer incivility can now be done on digital platforms such as social media and review websites. The proliferation of internet access has provided Zimbabwean citizens with digital platforms where some citizens have resorted to hate speech and derogatory statements about Zimbabwe and its leaders thereby affecting and negatively impacting tourism in general tourism including agritourism. This qualitative study will make use of literature and interpretive argumentation techniques. This study seeks to understand customers’ incivility in digital and social media marketing platforms and its implications. The study also looks at the incivility implications for agritourism business growth in Zimbabwe. Uncivil behaviours were found to have detrimental and adverse effects on the reputation of agritourism businesses, leading to reduced customer trust, loyalty and overall business growth. In addition, uncivility deters customers, and this adversely affects the destination’s image attractiveness and reputation. Thus, this study enriches the existing body of knowledge by providing a comprehensive understanding of customers’ incivility in digital and social media marketing platforms within the context of agritourism businesses in Zimbabwe. Furthermore, this study presented specific challenges faced by agrotourism businesses and proffered practical solutions to practitioners and policymakers to develop effective strategies for managing and minimizing the adverse consequences of customer incivility on business growth in Zimbabwe and beyond.