“Love me, love my destination”: How fans' affection for a celebrity influences their intentions to visit an endorsed destination

IF 7.3 2区管理学 Q1 HOSPITALITY, LEISURE, SPORT & TOURISM

Tourism Management Perspectives Pub Date : 2025-03-01 DOI:10.1016/j.tmp.2025.101350

Chenyue Zhao , Xiaojie Lin , Ganghua Chen

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

This research explores how celebrity endorsement informs fans' travel behavior, specifically how affection for celebrities (“love me”) compels fans to visit destinations these famous figures endorse (“love my destination”). Leveraging affect transfer theory and the match-up hypothesis, we executed a survey and an experiment to investigate this phenomenon. Results indicate that celebrity involvement and celebrity worship significantly shaped fans' travel intentions. Factors such as the destination's cognitive and affective images influenced these impacts, as did fans' place attachment. The conditional process analysis also revealed celebrity–destination congruence to moderate the link between celebrity involvement (or celebrity worship) and travel intention, which place attachment mediated. This research enriches affect transfer theory and the match-up hypothesis by enhancing understanding of the integrative emotional transfer process of fan tourists. It also offers implications for DMOs to leverage fan affection by creating emotionally engaging experiences and carefully aligning celebrity endorsements with destination image.

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来源期刊

Tourism Management Perspectives Multiple-

CiteScore

15.60

自引率

3.40%

发文量

审稿时长

59 days

期刊介绍： Tourism Management Perspectives is an interdisciplinary journal that focuses on the planning and management of travel and tourism. It covers topics such as tourist experiences, their consequences for communities, economies, and environments, the creation of image, the shaping of tourist experiences and perceptions, and the management of tourist organizations and destinations. The journal's editorial board consists of experienced international professionals and it shares the board with Tourism Management. The journal covers socio-cultural, technological, planning, and policy aspects of international, national, and regional tourism, as well as specific management studies. It encourages papers that introduce new research methods and critique existing ones in the context of tourism research. The journal publishes empirical research articles and high-quality review articles on important topics and emerging themes that enhance the theoretical and conceptual understanding of key areas within travel and tourism management.