The impact of social media influencers on viewers’ inspiration towards tourism destinations and revisit intention: a combined PLS-SEM and NCA approach

The current study examines the role of social media influencers’ (SMIs) attributes on viewers’ inspiration towards travelling to tourism destinations and their revisit intention, underpinned by both the ‘stimulus to organism response’ (S-O-R) model and ‘persuasion theory’. Firstly, a lay theory approach was used to assess visitors’ beliefs of SMIs’ travel content, via a trinary questionnaire (Yes/Maybe/No). Secondly, PLS-SEM and ‘necessary condition analysis’ (NCA) approaches were applied to assess sufficiency logic and necessary conditions. The trinary responses indicate that travellers believe that SMIs’ attributes are important to them. Moreover, the findings of PLS and NCA reveal that three main persuasive attributes of SMIs, notably expertise, trustworthiness and familiarity, are significant influences as well as the necessary conditions to drive viewers’ inspiration, which further leads to revisit intention. While entertainment and synchronous interactivity are identified as influential factors, they are not necessary conditions. Additionally, informativeness and asynchronous interactivity have neither significant impacts nor necessary conditions. The current study findings extend the persuasion theory by confirming the new attributes of SMIs and the outcome variables of viewers’ inspiration and revisit intention. This study offers practical implications for stakeholders to develop effective online travel promotions through SMIs to increase tourist volume towards destinations.