The congruence effect in tourism activity marketing: the difference between virtual influencers and human influencers

Selecting appropriate influencers for different tourism activities has become a challenge in tourism marketing. In response, this study utilised two experiments to systematically reveal the congruence effects between influencers (human vs. virtual) and tourism activities (relaxing vs. challenging) on potential tourists’ willingness to participate. The findings indicate that tourists’ willingness to participate increases when human influencers promote relaxing tourism activities and that perceived reliability and individual attitudes serially mediate this effect. Conversely, tourists’ willingness to participate increases when virtual influencers promote challenging tourism activities, and perceived novelty and individual attitudes serially mediate this effect. This study reveals the matching effects and underlying mechanisms between influencer types and tourism activity types and clarifies the appropriate contexts for different types of influencers in tourism marketing. Moreover, this study offers substantive insights into effective influencer selection strategies, enhancing targeted marketing efforts in tourism activities.