Earticle

This study is focused on the investigation of the utilization of tourism information quality in social media with respect to destination image formation. To fulfill the objectives of the study, the paper uses two methods; literature review and empirical analysis. The literature review refers to existing studies, and reestablishes the concept of tourism information quality in social media, and identifies the cognitive, affective and conative aspects of tourism destination image. On the other hand, the empirical analysis is based on the questionnaire given to the users provided with tourism information in social media. The results of the questionnaire make use of the sample size of 212 Chinese respondents who have experience of utilizing tourism information in social media. The results indicate that vividness and mutual interaction as the contextual characteristics of tourism information in social media show a meaningful positive relationship with cognitive image and affective image, and those images shows a meaningful positive relationship with conative image related with behavioral factors such as intention to visit. This study will contribute theoretically to confirming empirically the relationship between tourism information quality in social media and destination image. In addition, this provides empirical evidence supporting former studies about destination image formation. In terms of practical contribution, this study will help to build tourism marketing strategies utilizing social media to attract more tourists and construct new tourism business models or strategies related with social media.