The effect of congruence between celebrity and self-image on travel intentions to celebrity-related areas: Focusing on the cases of BTS and ARMY

This study explores the influence of BTS-self congruency on BTS tourism intention and the underlying mechanism. Specifically, an integrated model combining the source credibility model and the match-up hypothesis model was applied to analyze the relationships between BTS-self congruency, trustworthiness, regional expertise, flows, BTS-region congruency, BTS tourism attitude, and tourism intention. A total of 358 responses were analyzed using SPSS 23 and AMOS 24. The results indicate that the more fans felt that BTS's image matched their own image, the higher their trustworthiness in BTS. This, in turn, positively influenced their evaluation of the expertise of BTS-related regions. Furthermore, it was confirmed that this affected BTS-region congruency, which, in turn, led to more favorable BTS tourism attitude and increased tourism intention. This study has academic contributions by confirming the decision-making process of fandom in relation to tourism intention through the integrated model. Additionally, it has practical significance in that it can contribute to establishing marketing strategies to revitalize the tourism industry through K-pop.