Influencer Marketing in Sustainable Tourism : Evaluating the Perceived Credibility Dimensions among Micro-, Macro-, and Mega-Influencers

Sammanfattning

With the rising role of social media marketing in the tourism industry, many new opportunities for effective marketing strategies are emerging. These advancements offer great potential for encouraging consumers to make more sustainable and responsible travel choices, contributing to long-term sustainability in the tourism industry. This study focuses on influencer marketing in sustainable tourism, evaluating to what extent perceived credibility differs between influencers with low versus high follower count, comparing micro-influencers to macro- and mega-influencers. Specifically, the different dimensions of credibility in the context of sustainable travel and tourism are analyzed, guided by the Source Credibility Theory. There is a lack of previous research exploring the comparison between different follower counts, in the context of sustainable tourism and the topic of influencer marketing in sustainable tourism is a complex, underexplored subject. Therefore, this study is contributing to the academic field by offering new insights, which are also relevant practically in the tourism industry, especially as marketers are interested in using influencers to target niche audiences. The study is based on quantitative data, which was collected through an online survey with 94 respondents, and the collected data was then analyzed using SPSS, more specifically using inferential statistics e.g., Mann-Whiteney U test. Thereafter, the effect size was calculated to accurately answer the research question. The results revealed higher credibility for micro-influencers in sustainable tourism in four out of five dimensions, showing that micro-influencers are perceived as more trustworthy and authentic and score higher in expertise and homophily. The only dimension in which the differences were not statistically significant is attractiveness. Future research is recommended to test the impact of higher credibility of micro-influencers in sustainable tourism on their actual behavior.