Much research has been done on travelers’ emotions and behavioral intentions during the visit stage and the post-visit stage. This paper, however, investigates the importance of emotions in the pre-visit stage in social media communication and how they influence travelers’ intention to visit and word-of-mouth communication. Two laboratory experiments (n = 211 and n = 137) and a field study (n = 270) were conducted in a tourism destination in the midst of the Alps to test the proposed research model. Findings reveal that a smiling (vs. non-smiling) endorser in a destination’s social media post more positively influences travelers’ intention to visit and word-of-mouth than a non-smiling endorser. A marketer-generated post further reinforces the positive effect of a smiling endorser on intention to visit, while for a user-generated post, the smile does not matter. Emotional contagion is found as underlying mechanism for these effects. Implications for destination marketers and research are outlined.

对旅游者在访问阶段和访问后阶段的情绪和行为意图进行了大量研究。然而，本文研究了社交媒体传播中访问前阶段情绪的重要性，以及它们如何影响旅行者的访问意图和口碑传播。在阿尔卑斯山中部的一个旅游目的地进行了两个实验室实验（n = 211 和 n = 137）和实地研究（n = 270），以测试所提出的研究模型。调查结果显示，目的地社交媒体帖子中微笑（与不微笑）的代言人比不微笑的代言人对旅行者的访问意图和口碑产生更积极的影响。营销人员生成的帖子进一步强化了微笑代言人对访问意图的积极影响，而对于用户生成的帖子，微笑无所谓。情绪传染被认为是这些影响的潜在机制。概述了对目的地营销人员和研究的影响。