Digital Marketing and Consumer Behaviour in Travel Services: A Conceptual Framework on the Mediating Role of Brand Trust

Digital marketing shapes each moment of the contemporary travel journey, yet limited evidence still obscures how individual tactics foster purchase decisions. This conceptual study will develop an integrative framework that integrates four core touch-points, including social media marketing, email marketing, search engine marketing, and online reviews on travellers’ purchase intentions, positing brand trust as the central psychological mechanism. Guided by the Stimulus-Organism-Response theory, thirteen propositions will specify both the direct effects of each touch-point on trust and purchase intention, and trust as a mediator role. To demonstrate the mechanism for empirical validation, future research will conduct a purposive sampling of approximately 350 respondents from online travel agencies in Oman and analyse the proposed relationships using PLS-SEM. By unifying dispersed findings on digital tactics, trust formation, and high-involvement service choice, the framework is expected to advance relationship-marketing theory and equip travel brands with actionable guidance for designing trust-centred campaigns that convert digital engagement into bookings.