Drivers of the Use of Social Networking Sites for Travel Arrangements in South Africa: Test of the Social Exchange Theory

INTRODUCTIONSocial networking sites have been growing at a fast rate since the inception of Web 2.0 in 2005. For example, in 2011 there were 74 popular social networking sites worldwide, while in 2015 there were close to 90popular social networking sites globally (Practical Ecommerce, 2011; Mehra, 2015). Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn are the most used and best-known social networking sites in South Africa (Writter, 2015). Social networking sites are defined as 'web-based services that allow individuals to create a public profile, create a list of users with whom to share connections, as well as view and cross the connections within the system' (Boyd and Ellison, 2007:3). Most online social sites allow users to connect with a group of online friends, to communicate constantly with them, and to reconnect with old friends who share similar interests (Ernst, 2014). Social networking sites also has the ability to relay information in real time across the globe (Bowen and Bowen, 2016). Users of social networking sites, apart from blogging and exchanging messages, can also show their personality through designing their profile pages (Choi and Chung, 2013). Individuals choose friends with whom to communicate and have the freedom to present their profiles publicly or privately and to 'unfriend' people in their network that they do not like (Livingstone, 2008:394). Users have full control over the type of friends with whom to socialise with online; over 81% of the South African online population use social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (Ipsos, 2014). Globally, social networks and blogs are the most common internet technologies (Macnamara and Zerfass, 2012). Since the global increase in the use and popularity of social networking sites, a number of researchers (Shu and Chuang, 2011; Jalilvand and Samiei, 2012; Blasco-Arcas, Hernandez-Ortega and Jimenez-Martinez,2014; Hsu, Chuang and Hsu,2014) have taken an interest in investigating user attitude and adoption intention on social networking sites. Although these studies provide interesting findings on the use of social networking sites, they are limited in their approach, thus providing opportunity for further improvement. Most of previous studies disregard the individual's actual use behavior and what motivates the individual to participate in a particular social networking site (Chen, 2013). A literature review shows that intention to use a particular online technology may not positively influence behaviour for reasons such as usability (Elbanna, 2010; Zoonen, Verhoeven and Elving, 2014; Choi and Chung, 2013; Rauniar, Rawski, Yang and Johnson, 2014). A study is therefore required to establish the factors that motivate individuals to use a particular social networking site when making travel arrangements such as accommodation bookings, flights booking, car hire and deciding on which attractions to visit as well as factor which hinders individuals to use some social networking sites since there is limited information.The questions that this study seeks to answer are: What are the main aspects that motivate members to use social networking sites for travel arrangements? What are the main aspects that discourage members from using social networking sites for their travel arrangements? To answer these questions, this study adopted the Social Exchange Theory (SET), and a model was developed proposing selected factors that either motivate, or hinder, individuals in their use of social networking sites for travel arrangements. SET is one of the most important theories in explaining factors that influence social interactions and it considers the cost and benefits experienced by individuals when using online technologies in order to understand users' social behavior (Chen, 2013). However, most of the previous research on social networking sites adopted either the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) or the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB)(Zoonen,Verhoeven and Elving,2014; Rauniar et al. …