Article Consumer socialization agency in tourism decisions Torgeir Aleti RMIT University, Australia Jasmina Ilicic Monash University, Australia Paul Harrigan University of Western Australia, Australia Abstract This study introduces consumer socialization agency (CSA; i.e. the act of influencing another about consumption) as the reason why consumers learn through peer communication on social media tourism sites. Based on an online panel of 193 US consumers, the study investigated how a personal connection to a tourism site (i.e. customer engagement (CE)) and a connection with peers on social media (i.e. peer group identification) drives CSA about tourism, which, subsequently, influences learn- ing about tourism-related consumption decisions (i.e. peer communication). Our model establishes that identification with peers on social media and CE with tourism sites are antecedents to consumer socialization. Consumers need to feel engaged with tourism social media sites to participate in socia- lization, and connected to their peers on social media in general. Consumer socialization, or the willingness to teach/influence tourism-related skills to friends, influences the willingness to learn new tourism consumer skills, including tourism-related decision-making. We propose that for a tourism site to be successful, it must enable social exchange of knowledge and ideas (through enabling consumer socialization), not just individual user experience. Keywords Customer engagement, consumer socialization, peer communication, social learning theory, social media Introduction and background Social media is fundamentally changing the way consumers communicate, collaborate, and create (Aral et al., 2013). Social media enables consu- mers to build relationships and to expand their skills, knowledge, and attitudes through social interaction (Ellison et al., 2007; Hill et al., 2015). In the modern media landscape, a large proportion of travelers are influenced by social media (Cabiddu et al., 2014; Hede and Kellett, 2012; Pabel and Prideaux, 2015). Data from Nielsen (2016) suggest that 69% of online con- sumers use social media discussions to help make purchase decisions. In Australia, for exam- ple, companies in the tourism industry have the fastest growth in Facebook fans—reaching higher numbers of fans than any other industry (Carroll, 2015). Tourism-related social media are also becoming widespread. TripAdvisor is cur- rently the largest travel community in the world, reaching 350 million unique monthly visitors and 320 million reviews and opinions covering more than 6.2 million accommodations, restaurants, and attractions worldwide (TripAdvisor, 2016). Corresponding author: Torgeir Aleti, School of Economics, Finance and Marketing, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne, Victoria 3001, Australia. Email: torgeir.aleti@rmit.edu.au Journal of Vacation Marketing 1–13 ª The Author(s) 2017 Reprints and permission: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav DOI: 10.1177/1356766717700190 journals.sagepub.com/home/jvm