Effects of travel vloggers’ attributes on tourists’ intention: the role of cynicism

ABSTRACT

With the popularity of short vlogs, a growing number of tourist destinations have begun to pay attention to their marketing value. Given this heightened attention, vloggers have increasingly been shooting tourism vlogs. This study establishes a structural equation model (SEM) based on the literature review on vlogger attributes, parasocial interaction, cynicism and travel intention. The research found that vlogger attributes positively affect parasocial interaction, which subsequently positively influences travel intention. Meanwhile, cynicism negatively affects parasocial interaction and has a minor influence that it can be considered practically insignificant on travel intention. This article also provides both practical and theoretical suggestions for tourism destination managers and tourism vloggers.

KEYWORDS:

• Vlogger attributes
• parasocial interaction
• cynicism
• travel intention

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Funding

This project was partly supported by Macau University of Science and Technology Faculty Research Grants, FRG-23-038-SLA.

Data availability statement

References to the publicly available data are given in the paper.