This study examines how social media influencers shape sustainable tourism attitudes and behaviors through an integrated bibliometric and systematic evidence synthesis. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, we searched five major databases using Boolean terms anchored to social media, influencers, and sustainable tourism for publications from 2010 to 2025. After screening 2273 records and applying structured quality appraisal (Mixed Methods Appraisal Tool), 47 peer-reviewed studies were included. The review proceeds in two analytically distinct stages: a bibliometric mapping stage (publication trends, journal distribution, geographic spread, keyword co-occurrence, and theoretical frequency) and a systematic thematic synthesis stage (thematic coding, quality appraisal, and conceptual integration). Findings reveal accelerating research post-2020, with influencer content enhancing environmental awareness, destination image, and behavioral intentions through four principal mechanisms: sustainability message framing (Framing Theory), dual-route persuasion, peripheral and central (Source Credibility Theory and Elaboration Likelihood Model), parasocial relational bonding, and cost–benefit evaluation (Social Exchange Theory). Critical tensions identified include the persistent intention–behavior gap, the limited generalizability across non-Western contexts, and the underexplored role of platform affordances. The review contributes a novel multitheoretical framework with explicit inputs, mechanisms, outcomes, and moderating boundary conditions, the first of its kind in this intersection. Tourism marketers can deploy credible micro- and nano-influencers using attribute-value framing on visually rich platforms to promote eco-friendly choices effectively.
This research investigates how subjective busyness influences consumers’ upgrading decisions in tourism and hospitality contexts. Drawing on compensatory consumption theory, we propose that subjective busyness heightens consumers’ sense of self-entitlement, thereby increasing their propensity to choose premium upgrades. Across four studies (one field study with real hotel guests and three experimental studies spanning hotel, restaurant, and spa contexts; total N = 1400), we demonstrate that individuals experiencing greater subjective busyness are more likely to opt for premium service upgrades and that this relationship is mediated by heightened self-entitlement. Further, we identify two important boundary conditions: external recognition and beliefs in meritocratic fairness. The positive effect of busyness on upgrading decisions is attenuated when consumers receive external recognition of their busyness, but amplified among consumers with stronger meritocratic beliefs. These findings extend compensatory consumption theory to tourism and hospitality management research, while offering vacation and service providers actionable strategies for designing upgrade communications. Notably, we highlight the ethical considerations of exploiting transient psychological states in consumer decision making.
This study examines paid temple-stay retreats in China as a form of commercialised escape. Drawing on qualitative interviews, field observation and netnography, the findings demonstrate that retreat participation is legitimised as self-rescue and self-cultivation, and delivered through a disciplined time regime of schedules, silence, dietary control and behavioural rules. Payment is not treated as a simple price, but is continuously reframed through donation language, cost realism and authenticity work, revealing a fragile moral economy of exchange. The value of retreat is further tested through re-entry, where calm, attachment, disappointment and public storytelling expose commercialised escape as both remedy and risk. The study contributes to spiritual tourism theory by conceptualising withdrawal as a market-mediated, morally negotiated and temporally unstable form of sacred consumption.
This study examines how destination authenticity and brand awareness influence online travel agencies (OTAs) brand equity, with destination brand trust and perceived uniqueness as mediators and anthropomorphic chatbots (AC) as moderators. Drawing on the parasocial relationship perspective and associative network theory, it proposes a model that explains how authenticity and awareness shape the conversion of perceptions into brand outcomes. A cross-entity spillover is identified, whereby destination evaluations transfer to OTA brand equity through curation and perceived fit. Using survey data from 306 respondents and PLS-SEM, results show that authenticity strengthens trust, while awareness enhances both trust and uniqueness. Trust and uniqueness, in turn, drive OTA brand equity. ACs function as relational intensifiers, strengthening the translation of trust and uniqueness into brand equity rather than directly shaping these perceptions.
We explore how communicating indigenous identity through a corporate website of a family firm influences object-based and existential authenticity and how these factors influence visit intention and word-of-mouth through attitudes toward the website. The experiment involves visual stimuli from fictitious websites of family-owned hotels in Rapa Nui (Easter Island) and the administration of a questionnaire to assess the variables of interest. A total of 224 responses from the experimental study indicate that the communication of family indigenous identity has a positive influence on object-based and existential authenticity. These factors subsequently had a positive influence on attitudes toward websites, which positively influenced visit intentions and word-of-mouth intentions. Theoretical insights are provided on the value of signaling when branding indigenous family firms in a heritage destination context. This will assist managers and policymakers in signal selection and highlight the importance of coordinating communication efforts to implement effective branding strategies.
Promoting green hotel consumption is a key element in the green transformation and upgrading of the tourism industry. Goal framing serves as a common method of information presentation to encourage consumer behavior. However, few studies have examined how advertising goal framing affects green hotel consumption intentions (GHCI). This article investigates how advertising goal framing (positive vs. negative) influences GHCI through five experiments and a single-paper meta-analysis. The results indicate that positive advertising goal framing significantly enhances GHCI more than negative advertising goal framing, mediated by green trust and advertising attitudes, with nature connectedness playing a moderating role. By integrating goal-framing theory and prospect theory, the findings offer practical strategies for tourism businesses to drive green market growth in low-carbon economies.
Regenerative tourism has emerged as a promising pathway for coastal destinations seeking to move beyond impact mitigation toward ecological renewal and community wellbeing. However, limited empirical research has examined how tourists perceive regenerative coastal resources, how these perceptions vary across segments, and how they translate into relational values toward ecosystems and host communities. Addressing this gap, this study integrates the resource-based view with relational values to investigate regenerative destination marketing in a coastal context. Using Krabi, Thailand, as the empirical setting, the study applies a multimethod design combining exploratory factor analysis, partial least squares structural equation modeling, two-step cluster analysis, and importance–performance map analysis. The findings identify four RBV-based resource dimensions, namely, valuable, rare, inimitable, and organized resources. It also reveals three distinct tourist segments: resource appreciators, uniqueness seekers, and resource protectors. The results further show that tourists’ evaluations of coastal resources shape regenerative attitudes, which in turn strengthen destination relational values, particularly human–nature and human–community connections. The study makes an original contribution by extending RBV beyond strategic assets to include relational pathways through which coastal resources become meaningful to tourists. It also provides segment-specific insights for regenerative destination marketing by identifying priority areas where destination managers can improve resource performance, deepen tourist attachment, and foster long-term ecological and community resilience.
Cultural and creative products (CCPs) play a vital role in shaping destination images and enhancing visitor experiences. Drawing on the stimulus–organism–response framework, this study examines how augmented reality (AR) attributes of AR-enabled CCPs evoke positive emotional responses among tourists, thereby influencing their purchase intention and willingness to pay a premium. Data were collected from 513 tourists at the Temple of Heaven through a survey and analyzed using SmartPLS. The findings indicate that specific AR attributes significantly enhance visitors’ emotional responses. This study contributes to a deeper understanding of AR applications and underlying emotional mechanisms, while also offering practical insights for the design and marketing of CCPs.
Although perceived financial well-being is known to influence psychological well-being, little is understood about how it shapes restoration-oriented coping and vacation intentions. The purpose of this research is to examine how perceived financial well-being influences compensatory escapism and intention to travel to nature, and whether access to nature-based content and travel nostalgia shape these relationships. Drawing on the Conservation of Resources theory, the proposed framework was tested across three survey-based studies using partial least squares structural equation modelling. The findings consistently show that lower perceived financial well-being is associated with greater compensatory escapism, which, in turn, is positively associated with intention to travel to nature. Furthermore, access to nature-based content weakens, whereas travel nostalgia strengthens, the relationship between perceived financial well-being and compensatory escapism. By integrating financial well-being, consumer coping, and nature-based tourism within a unified conservation of resources framework, this research identifies perceived financial well-being as an important antecedent of restoration-seeking vacation intentions and provides guidance for vacation marketers in designing accessible, restorative experiences and communication strategies for financially constrained consumers.
As heritage sites increasingly employ immersive technologies to enrich visitor experiences, understanding how technology-enhanced heritage experiences influence revisit intention has become an important research concern. Drawing on the experience economy concept and the stimulus-organism-response framework, this study develops a dual-path model to examine how experiential dimensions shape revisit intention in technology-enhanced cultural heritage tourism. Survey data from 418 visitors to a UNESCO World Heritage Site in China were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The findings reveal differentiated mediation patterns across experiential dimensions. Escapism demonstrates partial mediation, exerting both direct and indirect effects on revisit intention, whereas edutainment and aesthetic experience exhibit full mediation through internal psychological evaluations. Perceived authenticity and place satisfaction operate as parallel yet distinct mediators, representing cognitive appraisal and affective evaluation, respectively. By revealing the nonuniform psychological pathways through which technology-enhanced heritage experiences influence revisit intention, this study extends experience economy research and advances the application of the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) framework in cultural heritage tourism. The findings also provide practical insights for designing immersive heritage experiences that strengthen authenticity perception, visitor satisfaction, and revisit intention.
Recent solo travel statistics show a continual increase in solo female traveller (SFT) numbers, creating new market opportunities for destination management organisations (DMOs). While SFTs are a lucrative market segment, their experience and by implication, their spending, at service encounters remains largely overlooked. Hence, drawing on the narratives of 34 SFTs, this article seeks to understand SFTs’ intrusive experiences at service encounters and their responsive strategies. The findings suggest that women perceived unwanted self-disclosure, physical space intrusions, and disrespectful behaviours as intrusive service encounters. While some women were able to respond by complaining directly to service management, the majority of SFTs felt they had to suppress their complaints due to several reasons. These reasons included distrust, perceived risk, lack of female workers, uncertainty of the legitimacy of the complaint, and perceived hassle. The findings of the study are discussed in the light of the consumer territorial behaviours perspective and provide useful theoretical and practical implications for service providers in developing solo-female-friendly servicescapes in targeting SFTs.
The integration of social media into tourism has changed how travelers plan, experience, and share their journeys, creating both opportunities and ethical challenges. This article reports the development and application of an expert-prioritized hierarchy of ethical and security challenges in tourism-related social media. A mixed-methods design was used, combining a systematic literature review, expert interviews, and the Step-wise Weight Assessment Ratio Analysis (SWARA) technique. The SWARA results identified five highest-ranked challenges: violation of individuals’ privacy through the sharing of personal photos and videos, data security and protection on social media platforms, risk of tourists’ information being hacked, possible theft of tourists’ information or passwords, and dissemination of false and misleading tourism information. These findings suggest that the most pressing concerns are both content-related and structural, reflecting weak privacy safeguards, gaps in data protection, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, and unequal platform-user relationships. The interpretation is guided primarily by Information Ethics and supported by Social Exchange Theory. Together, these perspectives explain the moral obligations linked to information use and the power imbalances involved in data-for-access arrangements. Emerging issues, including AI-generated content, are discussed as developments that may intensify misinformation and authenticity concerns. Practical recommendations are provided for platform developers, tourism businesses, and policymakers on privacy controls, cybersecurity safeguards, content verification, and clearer accountability in tourism social media environments.
This study investigates the formation mechanism of autobiographical memory among recreational vehicle travelers by validating the negotiation-inspiration-memory model. Drawing on 358 valid responses collected through a survey in China, the study confirms that intrapersonal, interpersonal, and structural constraints significantly influence negotiation. Connectedness to nature and social interaction are identified as antecedents of tourist inspiration. Both negotiation and inspiration positively predict autobiographical memory, with a sense of achievement moderating these relationships. The findings offer theoretical insights into how behavioral and cognitive processes interact to shape memory formation in tourism contexts. The results suggest that marketers and destination managers can enhance memory encoding through targeted interventions such as storytelling prompts, milestone recognition, and immersive social experiences.
Four experimental studies were hereby conducted to explore the interaction effects between virtual influencer type (human-like vs. cartoon-like) and advertising appeal type (competence vs. warmth) on consumers’ visit intention. Findings revealed that human-like virtual influencers paired with competence-focused messages and cartoon-like virtual influencers matched with warmth-focused messages higher levels of consumers’ visit intention. Perceived diagnosticity was identified as a mediating variable underlying the observed interaction effects. Moreover, the moderating role of thinking styles was also investigated. Collectively, this research highlights the critical role of strategically pairing virtual influencers with appropriate advertising appeals to optimize destination marketing effectiveness.
The notion of travel experience has been widely studied; however, little effort has been invested in understanding generational preferences for cruise experiences and cruisers' happiness in relation to future time. This study thus examined generational effects on travel experiences and happiness derived from cruise travel based on a future time perspective (FTP). This lens offers a theoretical framework with which to appraise these relationships. Mixed methods and the difference measure were adopted to develop measurement scales and test hypotheses for Chinese senior cruisers. Quantitative results uncovered four dimensions containing 10 items tied to the ordinary-extraordinary cruise experience. Findings indicated that seniors with limited travel FTP were more likely to choose ordinary cruise experiences, whereas non-seniors with extensive travel FTP preferred extraordinary cruise experiences. Furthermore, senior cruisers were equally as happy as non-senior cruisers. Theoretical, methodological, and practical implications were also discussed.
Destination promotion organizations (DPOs) increasingly use time sensitive social media trends to attract attention and stimulate engagement. This study examines how the congruence between DPO content and trending user-generated content shapes online engagement and subsequent visit-related outcomes. We develop a multimodal approach using Contrastive Language-Image Pre-training embeddings to measure the alignment between the textual and visual elements of DPO posts and trending user-generated content. Drawing on a Weibo dataset from 50 Chinese tourism cities, we find that trend-congruent content increases online engagement and activates users’ organismic responses, including cognition, pleasure, and self-congruence. However, engagement convert in to actual visits mainly through self-congruence whereas pleasure has no significant direct effect. The study shows that trend-following is effective when it creates identity-based resonance rather than only short-term attention, and demonstrates a replicable multimodal measure of content-trend congruence in destination marketing research.
Although the uniqueness of destinations is essential, the concept of destination uniqueness has not been fully explored. Based on ethnic minority destinations, this research aims to develop a measurement scale of destination uniqueness and examine its effect on storytelling in cultural transmission through their experience in ethnic minority destinations. A qualitative investigation was conducted based on 171 online blogs (study 1), which identified three dimensions of the destination uniqueness of minority tourism: differentiation, individuality and irreplaceability. Then, a survey of 412 tourists was conducted in an ethnic minority tourism destination (study 2). Results show that the destination uniqueness of ethnic minority tourism is positively related to the ethnic minority tourism experience (novelty, knowledge and meaningfulness) and storytelling in cultural transmission. The conceptualisation of destination uniqueness provides researchers with a new research direction. The findings enrich the knowledge of ethnic tourism destinations and help managers highlight the uniqueness of a destination.
Residential tourism, characterized by extended stays at travel destinations, has gained increasing popularity among seniors. Guided by time perspective theory and self-determination theory, this study examines how a balanced time perspective influences senior travelers’ residential tourism intentions. Survey data were collected from 453 older adults in China. The results reveal that a balanced time perspective is positively associated with higher residential tourism intentions, with perceived social support and meaning in life serving as mediators. Moreover, this effect is significantly stronger for employed seniors than for retired seniors. For employed seniors, the mediating role of meaning in life is particularly pronounced, while for retired seniors, perceived social support plays a more prominent mediating role. These findings offer practical insights for promoting residential tourism through a deeper understanding of seniors’ travel behaviors.
With the deep penetration of social media, tourists’ recommendations have become a key driver enabling niche or nonmainstream destinations to achieve viral popularity. This study develops an integrated framework incorporating tourism experiences (entertainment, educational, escapist, and esthetic), perceived value (emotional, functional, and social), and destination image to explain viral tourism destinations recommendation intention. The results indicate that tourism experiences influence perceived value through multiple pathways, and all value dimensions positively predict recommendation intention, with emotional value exerting the strongest effect. Destination image strengthens the effects of emotional and functional value while weakening the role of social value. This study conceptually defines “viral tourism,” extends the applicability of Experience Economy and Perceived Value theories in explaining tourists’ recommendation intention in viral tourism contexts, and reveals the psychological mechanism underlying emotion-driven recommendations, offering insights for targeted communication and experience design to promote the viral diffusion of marginalized destinations.
Tourism demand has been a topic of interest among the scientific community for decades. Among the different approaches discussed in the literature, scholars have attempted to explain this demand using both traditional economic models, based on factors such as prices at the destination or tourist income, and also non-economic models focusing on social media, attractions or activities at the destination, or tourist movement patterns, for instance. However, to date, these non-economic perspectives have been analysed individually. In contrast, the objective of this study is to understand tourism demand from the triple perspective of destination activity-offer, combined with social media and tourist movement patterns. To fulfil this aim, information was gathered from 23 cities or municipalities of tourist interest in Andalusia (Spain), and econometric models were then developed to determine the tourism demand for different activities' areas of influence, using primary and auxiliary regressions. The results show that both the number of activities on offer at the destination and the volume of social media comments about those activities are capable of explaining tourist demand for the different areas of influence at the destination and also affecting tourist movement patterns. Important implications can be drawn from these results to help in the management of tourism demand.
