How Online Travel Reviews Sources Affect Travelers’ Behavioral Intentions? Analysis with Source Credibility Theory

ABSTRACT

This study used Source Credibility Theory (SCT) to examine the effect of the source credibility factors (SCFs) of travelers’ electronic word of mouth (eWOM) and their adoption on tourists’ hotel booking and review sharing intention. This study used Structure Equation Modeling (SEM) and artificial neural network (ANN) approaches to validate the effect of SCFs on tourists’ behavioral intentions. The study highlighted that all three source credibility factors, such as perceived sender trust, website trust, and organizational reputation, affected functional aspects like eWOM credibility and adoption. The study finds the dual-mediating effect of eWOM credibility and adoption between source credibility factors and eWOM outcomes. This study makes a unique attempt to analyze the roles of various aspects of SCT on tourists’ eWOM behavior. This study contributes to online trust literature by examining the effect of different online credibility factors (surface credibility, presumed credibility, reputed credibility) on online tourist behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Source credibility theory
• eWOM sharing intention
• purchase intention
• perceived sender trust
• website trust
• artificial neural network

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).