Exploring the Impact of Authenticity of Tourism Products and Customer Trust in Sellers on Electronic Word of Mouth Marketing Behaviors

-- A Case Study of Generation Z Travellers

Abstract

In the digital era, tourists tend to access travel information and refer to other people's reviews and experiences on social media platforms, so tourism products need to find appropriate ways to actively manage and promote electronic word of mouth. However, issues such as information overload, promotion of false information and authenticity of tourism products also threaten the EWOM promotion of tourism products; Moreover, there is no relevant research investigating the relationship between authenticity of tourism products, customer trust in sellers, and EWOM marketing behaviors with the mediating effect of customer satisfaction and customer trust in sellers, so this article’s aim is to address the issue of EWOM promotion in the hospitality industry in the digital era. Based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) model, this research investigates the impact of two variables, authenticity of tourism products and customer trust in sellers, on the EWOM marketing behaviors of tourists towards tourism products. In addition, the mediating effect of tourists’ satisfaction with tourism products and customers’ trust in sellers will be explored to enable tourism products to develop better EWOM marketing to further increase the attractiveness of tourism products and promote the occurrence of tourism activities. This research is a quantitative study using a questionnaire, data was collected from the Generation Z tourist group and data was analyzed using partial least squares regression. The theoretical contribution of this article is to provide theoretical knowledge about tourism product promotion and social media applications in the digital era, it extends previous research in the hospitality industry by examining the role of social media platforms and fills in the gaps in the EWOM marketing behaviors of tourists towards tourism products. The practical contribution is to increase the EWOM behaviors of tourists towards tourism products, thus promoting EWOM of tourism products. This study helps to provide a direction for the entire hospitality industry to better promote EWOM for their products.