Virtual influencer or human influencer in destination endorsement? The role of travel inspiration and forestalgic appeals

This study integrates customer inspiration theory and meaning transfer theory to examine how tourists’ discrete emotions lead to the comparative advantage of virtual (vs. human) influencer endorsers in enhancing tourists’ responses and whether advertising appeals and color hues have boundary constraints. Results from three experiments demonstrate that virtual (vs. human) influencer endorsements are more likely to boost tourists’ favorable attitude toward destinations and increase their travel or word-of-mouth intention via serial mediation through destination coolness and travel inspiration. Furthermore, it proves that forestalgic (vs. nostalgic) advertising appeals and cool (vs. warm) color hues can accentuate tourists’ positive responses when matched with virtual (vs. human) influencers. Theoretically, this research advances virtual influencer literature by proposing a novel explanatory framework for endorsement effectiveness, investigating emotion-related mechanisms, and examining temporal-based advertising appeals and color hue effects. Practically, it offers valuable insights for destination marketers to launch effective marketing campaigns with virtual influencers.