2021, 51(7): 542-561.
doi: 10.52396/JUST-2021-0111
Abstract:
Nowadays, the tourism industry is characterized by ever-increasing competition, and social media is the main way we get information in the information age. As an important branch of tourism, rural tourism industry is of great significance to economy and culture in China. Since rural tourism is an important part of tourism development and the current research on rural tourism is still insufficient, this paper puts forward the following two research questions. First, which quality of rural tourism information in social media will affect tourists' perception of destination image? Second, whether tourists' perception of the destination image will affect tourists' rural tourism intention?Based on the previous literature, we select relevant concepts and items about information quality, the destination image and travel intention to form a questionnaire to investigate people's travel behavior.A total of 177 respondents completed our survey, and it has been proved that there are significant positive correlations among rural tourism information quality, destination images and travel intention. The results based on empirical analysis indicate that the qualities are positively relating with the perception of the destination image are informativeness, value-added, amount of information, accessibility and source credibility, and have a significant impact on travel intention eventually. This study not only examines the role of rural tourism information quality in social media on tourists' travel intention from the theoretical perspective,but also proposes a marketing strategies for governments and practitioners of rural tourism to attract more tourists by improving the information quality in social media from the practical implications.
