Study On The Relationship Between Participation Motivation Of Members In Virtual Tourism Community And Decision-making Behavior In Tourism

With the in-depth integration of information technology and tourism industry,the rapid development of mobile communication technology has profoundly changed the operation pattern of tourism industry and affected lifestyles and consumption concepts of tourists.As Chris Cooper put it,"Future destinations are influenced by a number of factors,of which the needs of technology and new tourists are dominant." Under the support of Web2.0 technology,the virtual tourism community featured with information search,experience sharing and member interaction not only provides support for the decision-making behavior of tourists,but also builds a communication platform for tourism destinations display and tourism enterprises.Based on the practice observation of the virtual tourism community,driven by multiple motives,the members are involved in activities of different breadth and depth in virtual tourism community.Through literature review,it is found that the related research on virtual tourism community is expanding and the operation level is constantly improving.However,there are still some problems,such as insufficient participation of members,aggravated community competition and sluggish growth.The reasons lie in that members' trust and loyalty are not enough because of the unclear motivation of community members,the lack of awareness of experience service and the lag of distinctive tourism product design.Therefore,it is of both theoretical and practical significance to clarify the different types of participants' motivation and explore the relationship between motivation,participation level,trust and tourism decision-making in members of virtual tourism community.This article focuses on the following issues: First,how does the division of the main participation motives of tourism virtual community members differ,and how do different types of motives affect the degree of participation of members.Second,what are the distribution characteristics of the participation status of members of tourism virtual communities? Through the definition of the degree of participation,we measure the level of participation and interaction of the members at the current stage.Third,we clarify the definition and dimension of the tourism decision-making behavior of tourism virtual community members.How does participation and trust influence tourism decision-making behavior? Fourth,we focus on the intrinsic relationship between participation motivation,participation and tourism decision-making behavior,and the mechanism of trust between members in participation motivation and tourism decision-making behavior.Using the motivation theory,social impact theory,social identification theory,socialexchange theory,and planned behavior theory,the paper constructs a theoretical model of the participation of tourism virtual community members in the motivational influence on tourism decision-making behaviors,and proposes 36 hypotheses for research.And through 121pre-survey data,we use reliability analysis,exploratory factor analysis and other methods to optimize the questionnaire items,and ultimately form a formal survey questionnaire.A total of 504 online questionnaires are collected and 356 valid questionnaires are used.Reliability,validity,confirmatory factor analysis,and correlation analysis are performed on formal questionnaire data using SPSS and AMOS software.Structural equations and multivariate regression are used to evaluate data quality.The model assumes verification.Twenty-seven hypotheses have been verified and it is expected that the research goal is basically achieved.The innovations of the paper are mainly reflected in the following four aspects:Firstly,through the theoretical analysis of the motives of participation of the members of the tourism virtual community,four dimensions of the participation motivation are constructed including the functional motivation,the social motivation,the attribution motive and the entertainment motive.The travel decision-making behavior is designed in two dimensions,adopting the intention of the members to propose and the willingness to purchase online travel products.A theoretical model for the participation motive,participation,trust and travel decision-making behavior of the members of the tourism virtual community is constructed,and relevant research hypotheses are proposed.Measurement tables for the participation of members of the tourism virtual community develop in China.After actual testing,the measurement tools have practical application value for assessing members' participation in the community.Secondly,the paper discusses the main role of motives of tourism virtual community members in the decision-making behavior of tourism,and verifies that functional motives,social motives,attribution motives,and entertainment motives have a significant positive effect on adopting members' intentions of recommendation and purchasing will of online tourism products respectively.The conclusions of this study not only make up for the deficiencies of related literature researches,but also extend and deepen the influence of the participation motivation of members on the decision-making behavior of tourism.Thirdly,the paper verifies the mediating role of participation in the participation of members and the decision-making behavior of tourism,and clarifies the influence mechanism from the participation of the members to the decision-making behavior of tourism.Data and statistical tests show that the degree of participation is supported by the mediating role of attribution motives and entertainment motives that influence the adoption of members' proposed intentions and the degree of participation is supported by the mediating role of social motivation and attribution motives influencing the purchase intention of online travel products.What's more,the paper analyzes the internal role of the variables of "participation motivation-participation degree-tourism decision-making behavior",and makes a theoretical contribution to the further discussion of the degree of participation in the mechanism of tourism decision-making behavior.Fourthly,it verifies the mediating role of trust in the participation of the members in the motivation and tourism decision-making behavior,and clarifies the influence mechanism from the participation of the members to the motivation of the decision-making.Data and statistical tests show that trust plays an important role in the mediation of functional motivation,social motivation and the adoption of members' suggestions,and trust supports the mediating role of social motivation and attribution motivation in influencing the purchase intention of online travel products.This paper analyzes the internal role of the "involvement motivation-trust-tourism decision-making behavior" variables,and makes a theoretical contribution to the further exploration of the mechanism of trust in tourism decision-making behavior.