Author(s)

Yan Liu, Dan Jiang, and Gefen Zhou

Corresponding Author

Gefen Zhou

Abstract

With the development of the Internet and e-commerce, electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) has become the most important source of online consumers’ access to product information, which is also the most critical factor affecting their purchasing intentions. However, the previous researches lack an in-depth exploration of the influence mechanism and path of eWOM. This study starts from the three dimensions of eWOM, including the expertise of eWOM posters, the type of eWOM and the salience of eWOM, to explore the mediating effect of trust in the relationship between eWOM and Tourist Purchase Intentions .Samples (n=250) were collected online via questionnaires, and model verification and hypothesis testing are performed through structural equation model. The result shows that: (1) All of the three dimensions of eWOM have a significant positive impact on tourists' purchase intentions; (2)Trust plays a role as a mediating effect in those three influence paths.

Keywords

EWOM, Mediating effect, Trust, Tourist purchase intentions