Gastronomic tourism : Credibility influence of internet celebrity via electronic word of mouth (eWOM)

Social media has given rise to a new landscape of internet celebrities, who have become essential in driving eWOM towards fans and influencing consumers' purchasing intentions. Nevertheless, the burgeoning internet celebrity industry raises various concerns, including the proliferation of false advertising, potential compromise of product or service quality, and the deceptive practices employed by internet celebrities to mislead consumers. This research aims to investigate the influence of internet celebrities’ credibility on eWOM towards fans and consumer purchase intentions, to explore the internet celebrities’ influencing criteria on advertiser choosing and to suggest a new model of gastronomic tourism internet celebrity based on Source Credibility Model. This study utilized in-depth interviews and content analysis involving 25 informants including internet celebrities, fans, advertisers, and academicians and analyzed comments from TikTok and RED platforms. In-depth interview data were analyzed using NVivo. The findings revealed that the credibility of internet celebrities play a significant role in eWOM among fans and influencing consumer purchase intentions. The study also found that the key elements with the most impact towards eWOM are information quality, review quantity, and consumer needs followed by communication skills and personality. Advertisers' choosing criteria primarily emphasize past performance, consumer stickiness, personality and compatibility of internet celebrities. The new gastronomic tourism internet celebrity model consists of five key dimensions which are trustworthiness, attractiveness, ability, consumer needs and compatibility. Findings from this study provides a practical guideline for internet celebrities and advertisers in the gastronomic tourism industry to produce impactful content advertisement