Exploring the effectiveness of emotional and rational user-generated contents in digital tourism platforms

Abstract

User-generated content (UGC) is one of the most important notions that influences tourists’ decision-making. However, the nature of UGC is still underexplored in the literature. The present study aimed to examine the impact of two different forms of UGC (i.e., emotional and rational) on tourists’ perceived values and their subsequent behavioural responses. Using the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) model, the two forms of UGC were conceptualised as informational stimuli, while tourists’ overall value assessment (i.e., perceived values, including emotional, functional, relational, and entitativity values) of the utility of tourism activities in the tourism platform were conceptualised as organisms. Tourists’ behavioural responses were demonstrated by impulse buying and future purchase intention. Data from 538 respondents were collected using online survey and analysed using PLS-SEM. The results revealed that both emotional and rational UGC have a significant impact on tourists’ perceived values, which in turn strengthen impulse buying and future purchase intention. This study not only contributes to the tourism marketing literature by empirically examining the impacts of two forms of UGC on tourists’ organisms and responses, but also provides meaningful insights for tourism marketers to facilitate UGC to drive tourists’ perceived values and their subsequent behaviour.