The Impacts of User-generated-content on Tourist Behaviour and Its Collaboration in Tourism Industry: An Investigation in a Chinese World Heritage Site

Advancements in information and communication technology (ICT) have rev-olutionized communication between service providers and consumers. Both academics and industry have acknowledged that social media platforms play a vital role in tourist decision-making and destination branding, but a comprehensive assessment of how social media affects tourism behaviour and its capacity to boost destination value remains elusive.

The purpose of this study is to fill that gap by examining the impacts of user-generated content (UGC) in social media on tourist behaviours, as well as its role in contributing to destination value co-creation. Gulangyu, a well-known World Heritage Site and a heritage tourism destination in southeast China, served as a case study in this study. An on-site questionnaire survey and online narrative analysis were conducted to investigate how UGC influences visitors during their entire vacation travel process and how travellers share their travel experiences through social media, further enhancing the value of the destination.

Both qualitative and quantitative methods were used in this investigation. During the first-stage on-site questionnaire collection, 500 Gulangyu tourists were approached in 2018. The structural equation modelling (SEM) analysis was conducted based on a sample of 439 travellers who reported they planned their trips using user-generated travel information on social media. Study results indicate that UGC impacts tourist behaviour across the entire holiday-related decision process, from destination selection, purchasing be-haviour to loyalty behaviour. On the second round of data collection, 97 travel blogs and their interactive comments with readers were selected as a suitable qualitative data set. The online narrative analysis of travel blogs identified three unique themes that contribute to the co-creation of destination value through the sharing of holiday travel experiences on social media (Xu et al., 2022). A discussion is presented on the theoretical and managerial implications of each study regarding how UGC influences tourists' decision-making as well as how tourists' sharing behaviour affects destination value co-creation. In a conclusion, the limitations and future research directions are indicated.