Investigating the determinants of travel blogs influencing readers' intention to travel

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to propose and examine a new research model that can capture affective, cognitive and cyber-interactive elements influencing travel blog readers' behavioural intention to travel through affecting their perceived destination image. A survey of 323 blog participants found a strong support for the model. The results indicated that travel blog participants' perceptions of destination image could be a strong predictor of their travel intention. Factors assisting in building affective images (e.g. generating empathy, experiencing appeal) as well as cognitive images (e.g. providing guides) and facilitating interpersonal interactions (e.g. social influence, cybercommunity influence) were found to be critical components significantly influencing bloggers' perceptions of destination image. Theoretical and practical implications of the results were discussed.

Keywords:

• travel blogs
• perceived destination image
• behavioural intention

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by grants from the Chung Hua University of the Republic of China under Contract Number CHU-99-I-01. Moreover, the principal investigator of this work would like to thank the Editor, Professor G.P. Akehurst and two anonymous reviewers for their excellent comments and suggestions.