From digital stimulus to hiking participation: an SOR-based examination of the internal associations between social media hiking content and participation intention in Chinese generation Z consumers.

Objective: This study examined the relationship between perceived social media hiking content and hiking participation intention among Chinese Generation Z consumers. It further tested whether this relationship was consistent with a serial mediation pattern involving travel inspiration and destination image, and whether social connectedness moderated these associations. Node-level network analysis was also used to identify key relational structures among construct items and dimensions. Methods: An online questionnaire survey was conducted among 1,186 Chinese Generation Z consumers with prior contact with social media hiking content. Participants completed measures of perceived social media hiking content, travel inspiration, destination image, social connectedness, and hiking participation intention. SPSS 26.0 was used for common method bias testing, descriptive statistics, and correlation analysis. The PROCESS macro was used to examine serial mediation and moderated conditional process models. R software was used to estimate an undirected node-level network and identify conditional associations among items and dimensions. Results: Perceived social media hiking content was significantly and positively associated with hiking participation intention. The serial mediation analysis showed that this relationship was consistent with indirect pathways involving travel inspiration and destination image. Social connectedness moderated some of the associations. At higher levels of social connectedness, the positive associations among perceived social media hiking content, destination image, and hiking participation intention were stronger, and the indirect associations through destination image and through the travel inspiration-destination image pathway were more pronounced. Network analysis indicated that hiking participation intention and destination image were the main cross-community connection areas. Future participation likelihood, affective image, adoption intention, recommendation intention, and infrastructure evaluation emerged as key bridge nodes. Conclusion: Perceived social media hiking content was positively associated with hiking participation intention among Chinese Generation Z consumers, and this relationship was consistent with a serial mediation pattern involving travel inspiration and destination image. Social connectedness moderated some of these associations, suggesting that the link between perceived hiking-related social media content and hiking participation intention may vary according to consumers' relational embeddedness. Overall, this study provides correlational evidence for applying the stimulus-organism-response framework to leisure sport consumption and digital tourism behavior, and offers practical insights for social media hiking content communication and outdoor leisure consumption.