Influence of celebrity, destination and tourist personality on destination attachment and revisit intention: Moderating roles of endorsement embeddedness, destination crowding and gender

Abstract

We draw on the congruity theory and brand personality literature to investigate the influence of three personality dyads—(1) tourist–destination personality congruence, (2) tourist–celebrity endorser personality congruence and (3) celebrity–destination personality congruence—on the destination attitude, destination attachment and revisit intention of tourists. We conduct two studies to examine the hypotheses. Study 1 (n = 1502) shows, using a survey design, that both celebrity–destination personality congruence and tourist–destination personality congruence increases tourists' destination attitude and attachment. Destination attachment is the psychological mechanism that underlies the influence of destination attitude on revisit intention. Tourists’ gender moderates the impact of tourist–destination personality congruence on destination attachment. Moreover, low destination crowding accentuates the effect of destination attitude on destination attachment. Study 2 (n = 509) uses a one-factor between-subject design to demonstrate that embedded celebrity endorsements on social media accentuate the impact of celebrity–destination congruence on destination attitude and attachment.