Effect of parasocial relationship on tourist's destination attitude and visit intention

Along with the rapid development of the Internet, the form of destination marketing is becoming increasingly innovative and diverse. Celebrity endorsement via social media, as an effective marketing strategy, has been widely used by various tourism companies to attract and engage with their customers. Previous studies have investigated the various aspects of such endorsement (e.g. the effect of endorser's attributes) in different contexts (e.g. Hotel, Restaurant, Airline). However, little research has focused on the influence of the tourists' parasocial relationship with endorsers on destination marketing. Accordingly, the current study aims to explore the role of parasocial relationships on tourists' destination attitude and visit intention. This study adopted quantitative method and conducted Partial Least Square-Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) for data analysis. 498 valid questionnaires were collected from Weibo (One of China's most popuar social media platforms). Results suggested that endorser's credibility positively influenced follower's parasocial relationship (p