Superiority of a similar other is even more likely to elicit upward social comparison because a similar other is more personally relevant than a dissimilar other (Wood 1989). Moreover, upward social comparison is more likely to influence individuals with low self-esteem who need social references to validate their sense of self (Crocker and Park 2004). Consequently, the present study focuses on the joint impact of three factors on focal consumers’ responses to sharedtravel experiences on SNSs: (1) the luxuriousness of shared travel experiences; (2) similarity between the experience sharer and the focal consumer; and (3) the focal consumer’s trait self-esteem.