From virtual to real: How live-streaming scenario and linguistic style drive travel intention in TEcLS

With the evolution of digital media, tourism e-commerce live streaming (TEcLS) has developed into a hybrid format combining virtual backgrounds and real scenes. However, the alignment between different scenarios and streamers' linguistic styles remains unclear. Grounded in Cue Consistency Theory, this study constructs a multidimensional ‘consumer, product, and scene’ cue integration framework. It reveals the interactive effects of streamer linguistic styles (guiding vs. affective) and live-streaming scenarios (virtual backgrounds vs. real scenes) on consumers' travel intentions. Using text mining and three experimental studies, this study found that for virtual backgrounds, guiding language effectively increases consumers' perceived value, thereby boosting their destination travel intention. Conversely, for real scenes, affective language enhances consumers' presence, similarly increasing their destination travel intention. Furthermore, perceived destination type acts as a boundary condition. For destinations perceived as ‘hedonic’, affective language is more effective in real scenes. Conversely, for ‘utilitarian’ destinations, guiding language becomes more potent in virtual backgrounds.