名人代言目的地对旅游者态度和行为的影响

Impact of celebrity endorsement on tourists' attitude and behavior

聘请名人担任形象代言人逐渐成为一种流行的目的地营销策略,但旅游学界对名人代言的研究才刚刚起步。采用准实验设计研究方法,以大学生为样本收集数据,使用结构方程模型检验了名人代言的主流范式"一致性假说"在旅游研究领域的适用性。研究发现:1名人/目的地一致性通过名人可信度影响旅游者的目的地态度和旅游意向,即旅游者感知到名人形象与目的地形象越一致,他们对该名人担任代言人的信任度就越高,进而就会对其代言的目的地形成好感并产生较强的旅游意向;2名人/自我一致性通过名人认同影响旅游者的目的地态度和旅游意向,即旅游者感知到名人形象与自我形象越相似,他们对该名人的认同度就越高,因而对其代言的目的地就会产生较好的态度和较强的旅游意向。

The use of celebrities for promoting tourist destinations is becoming a popular marketing communication strategy; however, the study of celebrity endorsement by tourism researchers is scant. Here, a quasi experimental design was conducted to collect data from a pool of 461 undergraduates enrolled at Hefei University. A total of 424 usable questionnaires were returned and we tested the applicability of the match-up hypothesis （the mainstream paradigm of celebrity endorsement） using structural equation modeling. We found that celebrity/destination congruence impacts tourists＇ attitude toward and intention to visit the destination through tourists＇ perceived believability of the celebrity endorser, that is, the more congruence between the perceived celebrity image and the destination image, the higher the perceived believability of the celebrity as an endorser and the better the tourists＇ attitude toward that destination and the stronger their intention to visit. Celebrity/self-image congruence impacts tourists＇ attitude toward and intention to visit the destination through tourists＇ perceived identification to the celebrity endorser, that is, the higher the perceived congruity between the perceived celebrity image and tourists＇ self-image, the higher the tourists＇ identification to the celebrity and the better the tourists＇ attitudes toward that destination and the stronger their intention to visit. These findings have theoretical and practical implications. First, this study extends the application fields of the match-up hypothesis to the area of tourism research. Second, the results are helpful to better understand the underlying mechanisms explaining the effects of celebrity endorsements on consumer attitudinal and behavioral responses. Third, this study proposes a new perspective to understand the effects of celebrity endorsement based on the theory of self-image congruity, which enlarges and enriches the realm of the match-up hypothesis of celebrity endorsement research. Last, when using celebrities to promote destinations, destination marketing organizations should consider not only the match between destination and celebrity, but also the congruence between celebrity and the target tourist market.