The Impacts Of Host Photo And Reputation On Consumer Purchase Probability In Short-term Rental Platform

With penetration of sharing economy in China,it has become a China's national economic development strategy.Until now,China's market share of sharing economy has jumped to the Top 1 worldwide.The booming increase of peer-to-peer(P2P)shared accommodation platforms reflects a huge demand in Chinese market.However,researches on influence of consumer psychology and behavior still need to be improved.From the perspective of host photo to solve trust lacking is becoming a new hot pot in the field of tourism.Using Face Processing Theory and Cue Utilization Theory as the theoretical foundation,this paper forms a conceptual framework based on the relationships between social impression perception,seller reputation and consumer purchase probability from the perspective of consumers,and explores the different inner mediated mechanisms of cognitive trust and emotional trust.The research collects 300 data from online and offline by scenario questionnaire,and then uses Structural Equation Model,Multiple Regression Analysis and Bootstrap method to do the Hypothesis test.Results suggest that:(1)photo-based social impression perception has a positive impact on consumer purchase probability,meanwhile the mediated effect of emotional trust is stronger than cognitive trust;(2)host reputation has a positive influence on consumer purchase probability,specifically,the mediated effect of cognitive trust is more significant than emotional trust;(3)photo-based social impression perception is a more significant and strong predictor of consumer purchase probability than host reputation;(4)cognitive trust and emotional trust play a chain mediating role in the relationship between host reputation and c onsumer purchase probability.In total,this results not only find how the private photos of host and host reputation influence consumers' attitude and behavioral intention,but also reveal the inner mechanisms how they work.Therefore,the research provides some advice for the tourism short-term rental websites that they should manage private photos uploading as the avatar and review ratings of host reputation,in order to maintain competitive advantages in some way.