The influence of content and non-content cues of tourism information quality on the creation of destination image in social media: A study of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Pakistan

Abstract

This research examines the Content Cues (CC) and Non-Content Cues (NCC) of tourism Information Quality (IQ) in social media (e.g., Instagram, Twitter, Facebook) and its influence on creating Destination Image (DES) components i.e., “cognitive image (COG), affective image (AF), conative image (CON)” in the scope of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Pakistan. We distributed 500 questionnaires at various tourist destinations, and 446 complete questionnaires were returned and use for further analysis. We use the Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) to get the research outcomes. Our outcome suggests that CC and NCC of tourism IQ are significantly related to the COG and AF, which leads to the CON. Our finding also identified the relationship between CC and NCC with CON through the mediation role of COG and AF, which were positive and significant. This research extends the insight of tourism IQ in social media, precisely the contextual dimension of IQ, by providing empirical evidence. This research also helps the KP Destination Marketing Organizations (DMO’s) to develop their marketing strategies to encourage more visitors by utilizing Social Media (SM) platforms to their destinations.