Online video services (OTTs) have grown rapidly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and have become the center of media consumption. OTT platforms such as Netflix, TVing, and Wave are replacing the role of traditional media by providing vast amounts ...
Online video services (OTTs) have grown rapidly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and have become the center of media consumption. OTT platforms such as Netflix, TVing, and Wave are replacing the role of traditional media by providing vast amounts of content without time and space constraints. This influence of OTT extends beyond just viewing habits to individual travel plans, interest in specific places, and decision-making to visit.
In this context, the characteristics of OTT platforms are drawing attention as they play an important role in promoting tourism activities for college students who are particularly familiar with digital content. Therefore, this study empirically analyzed whether the attitude of using the paid plan plays a mediating role in the relationship between OTT platform characteristics and tourism activities.
The subjects of the study were domestic university students who had experience using OTT platforms, and 206 of the 228 questionnaires were used for the final analysis, excluding 22 that had missing or unfaithful responses. SPSS 22.0 was used for analysis, and frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, and reliability analysis were first performed. After that, descriptive statistics and correlation analysis were performed, and the established hypotheses were verified through multiple regression analysis and mediating effect analysis. The analysis results are as follows.
First, among the characteristics of the OTT platform, reliability, attractiveness, and usefulness significantly increased the tourism activities of college students, but creativity did not have a direct impact. This suggests that college students consider the reliability of practical information and the attractiveness and usefulness of the content importantly when consuming content for tourism activities.
Second, among the characteristics of OTT platforms, reliability and creativity were found to have a positive effect on college students' attitude toward using the paid plan. This means that college students' trust in the platform and content and their expectations for original and differentiated content are major factors in increasing their willingness to use paid services.
Third, it was confirmed that the attitude of using the paid plan had a positive effect on all types of university student tourism activities such as cultural heritage tourism, natural exploration tourism, and rest healing tourism. This shows that the quality information and experience obtained through paid content is a factor that increases interest in various tourist destinations and leads to actual intention to visit.
Finally, this study proved that the attitude of using the paid plan plays a mediating role in the relationship between OTT platform characteristics and tourism activities. In other words, it was demonstrated that the attitude of using the paid plan is an important link between media content consumption and actual tourism behavior by explaining the process by which the characteristics of the OTT platform lead to college students' tourism activities through the attitude of using the paid plan. This suggests that college students' tourism activities can be effectively promoted by utilizing the positive characteristics of the OTT platform and by using strategies to induce the use of the paid plan.
Therefore, this study suggests that OTT content and service design, which can positively induce the attitude of using the paid plan, can greatly contribute to the promotion of tourism behavior and the development of various tourism experiences by confirming that the attitude of using the paid plan plays an important mediating role in the impact of OTT platform characteristics on college students' tourism activities.