The impact of YouTube travel vlogs on destination image and viewer's travel intention : the difference between high and low trip involvement groups

Abstract

[ACCESS RESTRICTED TO THE UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI SYSTEM AT REQUEST OF AUTHOR.] Travel related YouTube vlogs have significantly grown in today's tourism industry, creating a new trend among social media users. The purpose of this study is to examine the influence of source and message effect on audiences' perceived destination image from the video and analyze the differences between high and low involved audiences' perceptions. This study used both experimental and non-experimental research design using YouTube video and a survey method. A research model was constructed and empirically examined by using a sample of 393 respondents who watch the prearranged travel YouTube vlogs about Spain and South Korea. Further, the hypotheses of this study were validated with the help of structural equation modeling using AMOS 26.0 and SPSS 25.0 using multivariate analysis of variance. The SEM indicates that attitude homophily, argument quality, and perceived enjoyment as the most significant predictors of viewers' destination image. Source trustworthiness, source expertise, likability and perceived information usefulness were not found to be statistically significant. In addition, attitude homophily, argument quality, perceived enjoyment and destination travel intention was found to have significant difference between low involvement group and high involvement group. Based on the findings, discussions and implications for destination managers and YouTubers are also presented.