Recently, YouTube has become an important resource for obtaining tourism-related information. In particular, consumers search for food tourism content on YouTube. However, research on YouTube in the field of tourism is relatively limited compared to s...
Recently, YouTube has become an important resource for obtaining tourism-related information. In particular, consumers search for food tourism content on YouTube. However, research on YouTube in the field of tourism is relatively limited compared to studies on other social media platforms. Therefore, there is a need for further research based on YouTube.
Therefore, the purpose of this study is to understand the relationship between the reliability, consent, and playfulness of YouTube's food tourism content characteristics on perceived usefulness and behavioral intention for Japanese people. Through the study, theoretical and practical implications were presented, and basic data for food tourism content production and marketing to Japanese people were provided.
This study was conducted for two months from July 1 to August 31, 2024, and an online survey was conducted using Google Form for Japanese residents who have watched food tourism contents related to Korea on YouTube within the last 6 months. A total of 191 collected data were subjected to frequency analysis, exploratory factor analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis, and simple regression analysis through the SPSS27.0 program.
The results of the empirical analysis are as follows. Among the characteristics of YouTube food tourism contents, consent and playfulness had a significant influence on perceived usefulness. Second, among the characteristics of YouTube food tourism contents, reliability did not significantly affect perceived usefulness. Third, the perceived usefulness had a significant influence on the intention to visit and recommend. The theoretical implications of this study through these results are as follows.
Among the characteristics of tourism content, representative characteristics of YouTube content include reliability, playfulness, and entertainment, but they are also major factors being measured in previous studies. In addition to reliability and playfulness, this study adopted consent, which was not covered a lot in previous studies, as measurement factors, and studied reliability, consent, and playability on perceived usefulness, and behavior on behavioral intentions. In other words, it is meaningful that the academic framework for transmitting tourism information through YouTube has been expanded.
The practical implications are as follows. In this study, among the characteristics of YouTube's food tourism contents, reliability, consent, and playability were measured based on previous studies. In this study, it was found that playability had a great influence on perceived usefulness. In other words, it makes it easy for viewers to feel the usefulness of YouTube's food tourism contents or the provision of content that stimulates curiosity. These results suggest that when creating food tourism contents, producers need to further strengthen playability. In other words, producers need to create content that can induce interest by composing food tourism contents based on stories rather than simply delivering information. In addition, it is necessary to produce participatory content such as quizzes and Q&As in consideration of not boring consumers.