VISIT INTENTION TO EMERGING DESTINATIONS THROUGH SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING PROMOTION: THE CASE OF SAUDI ARABIA
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Abstract
The rapid occurrence of emerging destinations requires destination management
organizations (DMO) to use various channels to identify and promote these destinations to tourists.
A key barrier to visiting new destinations is the image of emerging destinations as places where
tourists lack sufficient information and perception of new destinations. DMOs are attempting to
all channels to promote tourist destinations, such as social media. With a plethora of information
sources and the increase of competitiveness among destinations via social media platforms,
promoting emerging destinations becomes difficult. Specifically, in finding credible sources that
contribute to influencing the building of a destination image and behavioral intention to visit
emerging tourism destinations. One of the factors that could influence the credibility of DMOs
promotion via social media is by providing informative content. Another factor that plays a role in
promoting tourism destinations that influence the credibility is the online travel community. The
online travel community’s role in endorsing the information provided by DMOs about emerging
tourist destinations through social media could influence the sources’ credibility.
Based on destination image formation and dual process theory, this study explores how
informativeness and online travel community endorsement affect information credibility of DMO
through destination image which in turn affects emerging destination visit intention. 646
questionnaires were collected through online survey and used for data analysis. The target samples
were from selected countries that applied for tourist visas. The study conducted confirmatory
factor analysis, structural equation modeling, and multi-group analysis to test hypotheses through
SPSS and AMOS. This study’s results show that 7 out of 8 hypotheses are supported.
“informativeness” “online travel community endorsement” significantly affects “information
credibility.” Also, the findings show “information credibility” significantly affects “cognitive
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image,” “affective image,” and “behavioral intention.” Moreover, “cognitive image” significantly
affects “affective image” and “behavioral intention.” Finally, the results revealed that “affective
image” does not affect “behavioral intention.”. Furthermore, the findings showed that the model
could explain 55.6 percent of behavioral intention to visit emerging tourism destinations. The
findings also indicated that participants using Twitter and percipients using different platforms to
search for emerging destinations have partially influenced the model. Finally, this study adds a
model that can evaluate the impact of these factors on promoting emerging destinations. It
contributes to the understanding of the factors influencing emerging destinations’ images through
social media platforms and the influence on tourists’ intentions to visit emerging destinations.