The mechanism of tourism slogans on travel intention based on Unique Selling Proposition (USP) theory

ABSTRACT

Tourism slogan is an important part of destination branding and marketing. This study uncovers the mechanism of tourism slogans on travel intention based on USP theory. Study 1 utilizes a content analysis to quantify China’s 5A-class tourist resorts’ slogans by applying USP (Unique Selling Proposition) criteria. Study 2 tests a moderated mediation model to explain the mechanism of tourism slogans’ effectiveness measured by these USP levels. Results show that slogans’ USP levels have a significant positive effect on travel intention through mental imagery, and this relation is moderated by fantasy proneness. Findings provide useful insights for practice and future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Tourism slogan
• influencing mechanism
• moderated mediation model
• unique selling proposition
• content analysis
• mental imagery
• fantasy proneness
• travel intention
• destination branding and marketing
• China’s 5A-class tourist resort

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed here.

Additional information

Funding

This research was supported by MOE (Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China) Project of Humanities and Social Sciences (Grant number 17YJA630031), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant numbers 71502019, 71572120), and Sichuan University (Grant numbers 20822041A4222, 2018hhf-37, SCUCXCY1703).