FACTORS INFLUENCE CHINESE TOURIST USING SOCIAL MEDIA IN TOURISM-RELATED: CASE OF SINA WEIBO

Abstract

Social media plays an important role in consumer relations for the tourist industry in China. In the last decade, Chinese people are getting used to visiting social media they trust before they make decisions on traveling. This trend, on the one hand, challenges traditional marketing strategies in the tourist industry; on the other hand, it also offers a great opportunity to take an insight into travelers’ behaviors affected by content from social media. So, understanding does how social media influence traveler’s behaviors become important for people in the tourist industry not only in China but also in the rest of the world. In order to respond to the call stated above, this thesis examines the largest Chinese social media platform (by the number of users and monthly active users) Sina Weibo, and do how its tourist content influence traveler’s behaviors. It will adopt a modified version of the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) to look into results surveyed from Sina Weibo users in 2020. The results suggest that the variables such as Effort Expectancy (EE), Social Influence (SI), Facilitating Condition (FC), and Information Quality (IQ) have a positive influence on Behavioral Intention (BI), which means the above factors will influence people’s travel choices when using Sina Weibo.

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