Hankering for travel? Drivers of travel intentions and role of opinion leadership

There is increasing research interest in tourism literature regarding social media influencers (SMIs), but the factors that impact tourists' travel intentions via SMIs are under-investigated. One prevalent factor in literature that impacts travel intentions in the context of SMIs is benign envy, as the content shared by the SMI causes envy amongst the followers. To empirically test the envious post by SMI, a theoretical framework using S-O-R theory is proposed to investigate the impact of benign envy on travel intentions via the sense of seeking, travel inspiration, self-motivation and sense of presence. Through the series of studies, first we select SMI, then a model was tested using a sample of 413 respondents. The results found a positive impact of benign envy on travel intentions, while travel inspiration, sensation seeking and autonomous self-motivation significantly mediate the relationships. Also, opinion leadership proved to be a strong boundary condition that strengthens the impact of benign envy on outcomes. This study extends SOR theory by showing that benign envy and opinion leadership work as positive stimuli that shape inner states such as presence, self-motivation, sensation seeking and inspiration, which then guide travel intentions.