| With the development of mobile internet,the choice of traveling style has been changed by the trend of mobility and socialization.It has been evolved from getting the information by face-to-face conveying to one another to obtaining more information through virtual community based on reliable website platform.In contrast to the past way of selling their travel products through travel companies’self-promoting,tourists tend to rely more on some tourists who have common needs.Those travel participants who can influence other tourists have become opinion leaders in the virtual travel community.Then,in today’s changing travel market,how to take advantage of travel companies’ products and sell them quickly through website platforms with higher trust degree,and how to discover the characteristic of some opinion leaders and reinforce the selling of their products to meet the needs of the tourist group,so as to serve the purpose of first influence the choice of opinion leasers,then the joining of other participants under the influence of the opinion leaders in the virtual community.This has become the problem well worth probing into.Although some achievements has been made in the study of opinion leaders in the academic field,the theory of opinion leaders still remains in the constructing phase,especially relating to virtual travel community.The way to define its characteristic and the study of its influence is still the main point of study.This paper makes a empirical research on the influence of opinion leader’s characteristic dimension on the participation of virtual travel community through case study and questionnaire method with the following purposes;(1)Through reading and understanding the document relating to opinion leaders,social identity,participation behavior,and trust degree of platform website and further studying its development,form the theoretical basis of this study.(2)constructing a model of opinion leader’s characteristic in the virtual travel community.(3)constructing a mechanism model of opinion leaders in the virtual travel community,social identity,participation behavior,trust degree of platform website and discuss the interrelated infuence among them.This study mainly focuses on the following questions;(1)What is the characteristic dimension of the opinion leaders in the virtual travel community?(2)Whether opinion leaders have direct influence on the participation behavior in the virtual travel community?whether social identity as mediating variable and the trust degree of platform website as regulated variable have indirect influence on opinion leaders’ participation behavior in the virtual travel community?To solve the above problem,this study is divided into two parts:One part involves the finding of the components of opinion leaders through various documents in different areas and the issued opinions of those representing opinion leaders in the mature virtual travel community platforms such as Mafengwo,TripAdvisor,online celebrities on Qyer and social media stars.It also makes a further theoretical study through case study on the interview to the opinion leaders made by the participants in the virtual travel community platforms,thus constructing the concept model of the characteristic dimension of opinion leaders through the methods of open coding,axial coding and selective coding.Another part makes a lot of sample survey,on the audience in the virtual travel community mainly on Mafengwo.TripAdvisor,and Qyer,collects 212 valid samples,makes a systematic analysis through spss22.O,constructs a regression model and also constructs a mediation model and a adjustment model through process3.3.It probes into a further study on the influence of opinion leader’s characteristic on the participation behavior in the virtual travel community through empirical study based on the regulation effect of the reliability of platform website.The study has come to the following conclusion through data analysis:(1)Through the study of a lot cases,it finds that the characteristic of opinion leaders in the virtual travel community is formed by their professionalism,popularity and interaction.Among them interaction form the basis of opinion leaders.professionalism is the important element of them,and popularity is the form of representation of opinion leaders in the virtual community.(2)The characteristic dimension of opinion leaders(professionalism,popularity and interaction)has positive influence on the participation behavior in the virtual travel community.Social identity with the characteristic dimension of opinion leaders plays intermediary and positive role on the participation behavior in the virtual travel community.The trust degree plays the positive adjustment function between the characteristic dimension of opinion leaders(professionalism,popularity and interaction)and social identity:the more the trust degree of the platform website,the more obvious influence the characteristic of opinion leaders play on social identity.Travel companies may select travel participants with the three characteristics like owning professionalism,popularity and interaction through those online platform with high trust degree as opinion leaders,reinforce the selling of travel products to those groups,thus affect the participation behavior in the virtual travel community and earn more profits for companies.The last part is the prospect of the study on future participation behavior in the virtual travel community based on the conclusion of the study.The development process of the virtual travel community has been changing,taking various external forms of representation.So the way of selecting opinion leaders also changes.The change of environment and times will influence the mediating variable and regulated variable between the characteristic of opinion leaders and participation behavior in the virtual travel community.It is a question well worth further study on how to extract the characteristics of opinion leaders who can influence participation behavior in different virtual travel communities and how to update intermediary agents and adjustment elements. |
PDF Full Text Request