• Journal of Smart Tourism
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• v.1 no.3
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• pp.31-44
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• 2021

The emergence of the digital economy and easy accessibility to Web 2.0 tools has seen an expansion of the influencer ecosystem within the travel and tourism industry. Founded on the principles of reference groups and peer reference there is a growing trend amongst industry practitioners who are now opting to move away from many of the traditional approaches used to market their products and services and are instead taking advantage of the concept of e-word-of-mouth (eWOM). Whilst there is a growing body of academic literature addressing the notion of influencer marketing, there is little understanding of influencer marketers themselves. Consequentially, this study addresses this gap in the literature through the quantitative examination of those who promote products, services, or companies by distributing eWOM through their online digital channels and presence; otherwise known as travel influencers. A quantitative research approach involving an online survey yielded 255 responses from travel influencers. The research findings indicate that those who work in this field prefer not to be awarded the label "travel influencer," focusing instead on their specific method of influencing, such as blogging and vlogging or sharing Instagram updates. The research also demonstrates how the new influencers have a strong role in generating travel urge and desire. The research contributes to the wider body of academic literature and travel industry practitioners by establishing the general profile of influencers and their increasingly specialized role in tourism and hospitality marketing.

• The Journal of Industrial Distribution & Business
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• v.12 no.2
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• pp.19-27
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• 2021

Purpose: This study investigated the impact of key factors such as service quality, perceived benefit and brand familiarity on a consumer's intention to order online food delivery (OFD). In addition, mediating effect of electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) between relationships among selected key variables and OFD purchase intention is also assessed. Research design, data and methodology: This explanatory, quantitative study employed convenience sampling and collected data through online structured questionnaire from 304 respondents who are users of OFD apps based in greater Klang valley region of Malaysia. The data was then subjected to normality and reliability assessment followed by confirmatory factor analysis, validity assessment and structural equation modelling using IBM SPSS AMOS 24.0. Results: Findings revealed that service quality, perceived benefits and brand familiarity affects purchase intention positively and significantly. Perceived benefits demonstrated highest impact on purchase intention followed by brand familiarity and service quality. Findings also suggest that e-WOM fully mediates relationship between brand familiarity and purchase intention, however, the same was not observed for remaining two variables. Conclusions: The study has enriched OFD literature by investigating impact of selected key factors on purchase intention in the context of OFD. Implications, limitations and future research avenues are then discussed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.7
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• pp.93-104
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• 2021

Most of the existing studies on the volume and valence of the eWOM (electronic word of mouth) about movies and box-office revenues were conducted using online actual data (secondary data) at Yahoo Movies, IMDB.com, Naver Movies, etc. However, it is difficult to grasp psychological variables from online actual data. Therefore, existing studies using online actual data could not identify the causal relationship among volume, valence and psychological variables. This study fills this gap in the literature. This study aims to examine the direct and indirect effects (i.e. mediating effect) of the volume and valence of online reviews about movies on purchase intention through review credibility as a mediator. We conducted a survey on the South Korean consumers and a structural equation modeling. The outcomes show that the total effects of both volume and valence are significant. In addition, volume has an indirect effect only (i.e. full mediating effect) on purchase intention through review credibility, but valence has both direct and indirect effects (i.e. partial mediating effect) on purchase intention through review credibility. The theoretical and practical implications for these results are presented.

• Journal of Information Technology Services
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• v.12 no.3
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• pp.73-93
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• 2013

This paper is a research on perceived risk of social commerce which has influence on purchase intention. This study uses a 3-dimension concept of perceived risk and then, deals with influencing a purchase intention. In addition, to search other influential variable to purchase intention, this study adds a variable with expected moderating effect. This study proposes several hypothesis and processes an experiment to test and attest these hypothesis. This study attempts to analyze the effect that perceived risk in social commerce has on purchase intention. By the results of data analysis, all dimensions of perceived risk are found to have significant negative effects on purchase intention. In addition, this study proves moderating roles of valence of WOM Information on purchase intention. Additional managerial implications are also discussed.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Aviation and Aeronautics
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• v.25 no.3
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• pp.1-8
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• 2017

As many people all over the world increasingly take more time in exchanging with other people or acquiring information on the internet, use of social media becomes a part of their daily lives. A lot of changes of consumer culture, which have been occurring through social media, have significant effects on corporate marketing activities. Since social media's importance to airlines has been continuously increased, this study attempts to examine effects of passengers' uses of social media, who plan to select an airline, on dependence on reliance of electronic word-of mouth(EWOM) and EWOM acceptance. To this end, a questionnaire survey of passengers who use airlines and the airline's social media was conducted, and then effective data of 302 copies were analyzed by using the structural equation modeling. The findings show that social media use intensity has a significant effect on Acceptance of EWOM via reliance of EWOM, while a direct effect of social media use intensity on Acceptance of EWOM is not significant. From this study, it is found that control and management of social media and only EWOM are effective tools for marketing of airline businesses, suggesting that innovative strategies are required to preemptively cope with changes in consumers' behaviors and markets, which continue to evolve.

• Journal of Distribution Science
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• v.18 no.3
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• pp.67-76
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• 2020

Purpose: Consumers are affected by the purchase of a large number of opinions or support during the online purchasing process. This can be defined as the term of 'social decisions' on line. This paper seeks to explore the factors of influence on social decisions in on-line environment and to study in depth. Methodology: The purpose of this paper is to empirically examine the impact of factors on online social decisions. To verify the hypothesis of study, This study collected 256 from Seoul City, Gyeonggi Province and Chungcheong Province through Survey. Results: According to the research results, First, eWOM information usefulness have a positive impact on online social decisions, Second, online network connectedness have a positive impact on online social decisions. Third, innovative product have a positive impact on online social decisions. and the lower the category of knowledge, the more inclined it is to make online social decisions. Finally, social decisions have a positive impact on purchasing decisions about product. It is most significant that academic research has advanced consumer behavior in response to recent changes in the consumption environment. It is meaningful that we have studied in depth the changing consumer decision process in online channel environment.

• The Journal of the Convergence on Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.2
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• pp.419-428
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• 2020

SNS media is gaining its media share with the benefits of digital technology, such as the convenience of physical access and the entertainment and interactivity of contents, and are becoming a part of users' lives. As media contents consumers move from traditional media to SNS, marketing communication activities are rapidly adapting to leading SNS platforms such as Facebook. This study compares how users perceive four advertisement attributes in each SNS, focusing on Facebook, Instagram, Kakao Story, and Twitter, where the media content creation and consumption systems are relatively similar to each other. The impact on eWOM intention was identified. In addition, we discussed effective SNS operation.

• Korean journal of food and cookery science
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• v.32 no.3
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• pp.353-362
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• 2016

Purpose: This study examined the influence of restaurant quality attributes on customers' satisfaction and their intention to revisit by investigating the moderating effects of customers' electronic word of mouth evaluation about ethnic restaurants. The study was based on a total of 215 samples obtained from social networking service users in a metropolitan area from July 10 to 25, 2015. The major findings are as follows. Methods: The data were analysed using frequency, factor analysis, regression analysis and hierarchical regression analysis. Results: According to the results of factor analysis, quality attributes were separated into three factors: food, service, and atmosphere. According to the results, food attributes, service attributes and atmosphere attributes had an affect on customers' satisfaction, between quality attributes and revisit intention, only food attribute had an affect on revisit intention. It showed also that customers' satisfaction had an affect on revisit intention. Customers' electronic word of mouth (eWOM) evaluation was found to moderate the relationships between service quality attributes and satisfaction. Conclusion: Implications and future research were also discussed.

• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.1-19
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• 2019

Prior studies on the effects of online consumer reviews have mainly focused on review valence, but little research has investigated how two-sided (both positive and negative) and one-sided (only positive) reviews influence consumers' response to online review. In addition, little attention has been paid to how sponsorship presence (firm-sponsored reviews vs. consumer-voluntary reviews) influences individuals' attitude toward online review. Unlike consumer-voluntary reviews without any monetary incentive, firm-sponsored reviews include messages about brands providing monetary compensation. This study examines whether review valence (two-sidedness vs. one-sidedness) influences attitude toward online review via its influence on review credibility. Further, this study examines whether sponsorship presence affects when review valence influences attitude toward review. Thus, this research investigates the effect of review valence on attitude toward review and the moderating role of sponsorship presence in the relationship between review valence and attitude toward review. The first experiment reveals that attitude toward review is more favorable when the review is two-sided (vs. one-sided). The second study demonstrates that differences between the two-sided and the one-sided review occur only for firm-sponsored reviews, not for consumer-voluntary reviews. The theoretical and practical implications are also discussed.

• (The) Korean Journal of Advertising
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• v.25 no.5
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• pp.7-42
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• 2014

This study is designed to examine the effects of information source's social distance on message attitude and online word-of-mouth intention (e-WOM). It also examined the moderation effects of blatant persuasive intention of message, the normative interpersonal influences, and the informative interpersonal influences on the relationship between social distance and advertising effectiveness. This study employed an experiment: 2(far/near social distance far/near) ${\times}2$(high/low blatant persuasive intention of message) ${\times}$(high/low normative interpersonal influences) ${\times}2$(high/low informative interpersonal influences). The results of this study are as follows. First, closer social distance led to more positive message attitude and higher online word-of-mouth intention. Second, when blatant persuasive intention of message is low, the effects of social distance on message attitude and WOM intention were more noticeable while those effects were less significant for high blatant persuasive intention of message. Third, there were no interaction effects of social distance and normative interpersonal influences on advertising effectiveness. Fourth, the effects of social distance on message attitude and WOM intention were more significant for high informative interpersonal influences than for low informative interpersonal influences. Implications of study findings are provided for strategic use of corporate Facebook page to generate positive consumer responses.