Exploring tourism marketing message authenticity and destination trust : the role of benefit appeal, framing strategy, and tourist attributes

Abstract

Studies are scarce on examining the influences of tourism marketing messages on tourists’ perceived message authenticity and destination trust, particularly in the post-crisis contexts. Drawing from the construal level theory and the prospect theory, and using a 2 × 2 experimental design approach, two separate experiments were conducted to investigate the direct effect of benefit appeal (i.e., self- and other-benefit) on participants’ perceived message authenticity, and the moderating effect (i.e., destination message framing strategy and tourist attribute) on the relationship between benefit message appeal and perceived message authenticity. Applying the trust transfer theory, this study also confirmed the positive sequent relationship between message authenticity, destination trust and visit intentions to the destination. This study provides both theoretical contributions to destination marketing and managerial implications for marketing strategy development.