Proposal for an integrative conceptual model of the cognitive and affective foundations of digital engagement in the tourist -destination relationship

Abstract

This article offers a narrative, integrative literature review of the cognitive and affective foundations of tourists' digital engagement within the framework of relationship quality. The approach adopted is a conceptual analysis of the literature on relationship marketing, attachment psychology and online consumer behavior. The selection of references prioritized the field's foundational works as well as recent empirical studies available up to 2025, focusing on digital tourism, in order to update the theoretical reflection and identify the article's positioning. The central research question is whether tourists' online engagement stems mainly from a cognitive process grounded in satisfaction, from an affective bond grounded in destination attachment, or from their combination. The article's originality lies in proposing an integrative conceptual model that articulates these two pathways, which are still rarely brought into dialogue in the tourism literature. Engagement, initially defined in social psychology as voluntary participation in a relationship, has been reconceptualized in relationship marketing, and then in the digital environment, as a multidimensional involvement, encompassing cognitive, affective and behavioral dimensions. In the tourism context, this involvement manifests itself through actions such as recommendation, experience sharing or content creation on digital platforms. In particular, the analysis mobilizes the COBRA model (Schivinski et al., 2016), which distinguishes three levels of engagement: consumption, contribution and creation. It highlights the interactions between satisfaction, attachment and digital engagement, while emphasizing the influence of digital tools in extending and transforming the tourist-destination relationship. The article concludes that online engagement is neither exclusively the result of rational reasoning, nor of purely affective attachment, but of their intertwining, which plays a decisive role in sustaining the relationship.

Classification JEL: M31

Paper type: Theoretical Research