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Exploring how live streaming affects immediate buying behavior and

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Exploring how live streaming affects immediate

buying behavior and continuous watching
intention: A multigroup analysis

Xingyang Lv, Rui Zhang, Yiran Su & Yang Yang

To cite this article: Xingyang Lv, Rui Zhang, Yiran Su & Yang Yang (2022) Exploring
how live streaming affects immediate buying behavior and continuous watching intention:
A multigroup analysis, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 39:1, 109-135, DOI:
10.1080/10548408.2022.2052227

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JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING
2022, VOL. 39, NO. 1, 109–135
https://doi.org/10.1080/10548408.2022.2052227

Exploring how live streaming affects immediate buying behavior and continuous
watching intention: A multigroup analysis
a
Xingyang Lv , Rui Zhanga, Yiran Su b
and Yang Yangc
a
School of Business Administration, Faculty of Business Administration, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, No. 555, Liutai
Avenue, Wenjiang District, 611130, Chengdu, Sichuan Province, China; bDepartment of Kinesiology & the Institute for Artificial Intelligence,
University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA; cSchool of Economic Mathematics, Southwestern University of Finance and Economics, Chengdu,
Sichuan, China

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

This study employed an attention-interest-desire-action (AIDA) model to explain viewers’ immedi­ Received 29 March 2021
ate purchase decision-making processes and continuous watching intentions within tourism live Revised 31 October 2021
streaming. Results revealed that informativity, entertainment, and interactivity each positively Accepted 7 March 2022
influenced immersion; immersion positively influenced viewers’ interest in tourism products and KEYWORDS
live streaming. Furthermore, product interest positively influenced buying desire, promoting Tourism live streaming; AIDA
immediate buying behaviour. Whereas live streaming interest did not influence buying desire. model; entertainment;
Finally, both product interest and live streaming interest positively impacted continuous watching interactivity; immersion;
intention. This study also detected group differences by examining gender, age, watching experi­ product interest; buying
ence and time pressure. desire; immediate buying
behaviour; continuous
watching intention; time
pressure

Introduction
By early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic had touched
nearly every corner of the global community, causing
an abrupt decline in international and domestic tourism.
Tourism, one of the industries most severely affected by
COVID-19, is now facing an “unprecedented” crisis.
Tourists’ concerns about health risks or the possibility
of contracting an infectious disease have forced travelers
to alter their travel decisions (Cheung et al., 2021). These
circumstances have effectively rendered tourism pro­
ducts unsellable and resulted in a large number of book­
ings being canceled. As an industry in such a dire state,
tourism companies are desperate for solutions to this
dilemma. Tourism live streams, a new form of media,
have become the preferred choice for many tourism
companies to presell tourism products and promote
tourism brands due to their revenue generation capabil­
ities during the pandemic.
For example, James Liang, chairman of Trip.com
Group’s1 board of directors, became involved in the
Trip.com Group tourism live streams2 on March 23,
2020 (See Figure C1 of Appendix for an example of
Trip.com live streams). By the end of 2020, the Trip.
com live streams have been conducted 118 times,
generating a presale total gross merchandise
volume (GMV) of more than 4 billion (CNY) for the
company. Moreover, 200 million consumers watched
Trip.com live streams and bought tourism products
in the live streaming room, with a 41.5% repurchase
rate. What is particularly noteworthy is that Trip.com
live streams have sold a high of 8,000 room nights
of hotel rooms in one minute, and an average of
41.2 sets of “rooms and tickets” combinations of
tourism products sold per second.3 These figures
reflect the strong product sales and brand market­
ing effects associated with tourism live streaming,
bridging the gap between traditional tourism mar­
keting and product sales. Meanwhile, they also
reveal that tourism live streams play a key role in
stimulating viewers’ strong immediate buying
power, increasing product sales conversion rate
and strengthening viewers’ loyalty.
Recent research has suggested that live-streaming
marketing can greatly alter the audience’s buying
path and enhance their purchasing efficiency (Su et
al., 2020), thus influencing their purchase behavior
(Gong et al., 2020). As Kang et al. (2020) noted, live
streaming could inspire immediate purchases. This
outcome is considered a temporary audience beha­
vior, that is, viewers can immediately place orders to
buy tourism products in live-streaming rooms,

CONTACT Yiran Su yiransu@uga.edu Department of Kinesiology & the Institute for Artificial Intelligence, University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia, USA, 30602
© 2022 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
110 X. LV ET AL.
thereby improving conversion rates and enabling
swifter product sales (Hu & Chaudhry, 2020).
Additionally, live streaming has changed the audi­
ence’s viewing behavior (Chen & Lin, 2018): Viewers
are now willing to spend extensive leisure time con­
tinuously watching tourism live streams to relieve
stress and gain happiness. Moreover, viewers may
recommend their relatives and friends to continu­
ously watch tourism live streams. Continuous watch­
ing intention can reflect audience members’ long-
term behavioral intentions. Therefore, through live
streaming, tourism companies can maintain engage­
ment with viewers staying at home while achieving
positive brand advertising effects. Despite the grow­
ing popularity of tourism live streaming, little
research has been devoted to studying the impacts
of tourism live-streaming characteristics on viewers’
immediate buying behavior and continuous watching
intentions.
Tourism live streaming is a hybrid communication
mode integrating video content, real-time visual pro­
duction, communication, and consumption (Deng et
al., 2019; Hou et al., 2019). To some extent, tourism
live streaming is similar to shopping-related live
streaming, because it focuses on selling products
and promoting destinations (Deng et al., 2021; Lau,
2020). Live tourism streaming has, however, devel­
oped its own distinct characteristics due to the flour­
ishing of social media technology. Based on a review
of studies pertaining to shopping live streaming, we
propose three core characteristics of this form of
communication: Informativity, entertainment, and
interactivity. These features appear to be essential in
capturing viewers’ focused attention, inciting viewers
themselves immersed in tourism live streaming.
Viewers’ interest in the product and the live stream­
ing is instantly awakened when they feel immersed.
Thanks to the two types of interest, viewers may
continue watching tourism live streams. Meanwhile,
once viewers have product interest, they may engage
in immediate buying behavior through generating
buying desires. Overall, tourism live streaming pro­
vides a vivid setting that integrates interactivity,
entertainment and interactivity such that shorten
viewers’ purchase decision-making processes.
Moreover, most enterprises frequently use strategies
to boost sales within a short timeframe or with lim­
ited supplies. In this case, viewers may feel under
time pressure, urging them to make purchases as
soon as possible.
Because live streaming facilitates accelerated deci­
sion-making processes, we employed the attention-
interest-desire-action (AIDA) model in this study to
test how viewers' behavioral intentions and deci­
sion-making processes change as a result of viewing
tourism live streams. Furthermore, the fact that view­
ers are not a homogenous group suggests that socio­
demographic factors (e.g., gender and age) and
watching experiences can influence their perceptions
and behaviors. Additionally, as a unique situational
factor, time pressure in live streaming may have an
effect on their perceptions and behaviors. We hence
test the moderating effects of gender, age, watching
experience and time pressure. The findings of this
study also provide guidance to tourism enterprises
on how to use live streaming to increase their pro­
duct sales and enhance their tourism brand market­
ing efforts.
Literature review and hypothesis development
Tourism live streaming in social commerce
Live streaming refers to a new social media form
that integrates multiple communication technolo­
gies (Deng et al., 2021). This communication mode
allows streamers to transmit audio and video from
talent shows, video games, daily life records, and
other settings in real-time to viewers via social
media platforms, accompanied by a live chat room
(Gong et al., 2020; Hu et al., 2017). Recently, live
streaming has gradually become more widely
applied in social commerce (s-commerce) contexts
where social networking sites support interaction
to facilitate online transactions and enhance consu­
mers’ online shopping experiences (Kang et al.,
2020; Wongkitrungrueng & Assarut, 2020). Given
the advantages of live streaming for effective mar­
keting (Gong et al., 2020; Sun et al., 2019), the tour­
ism industry (e.g., hospitality firms, destinations, and
other entities) has started to promote and sell rele­
vant products via live streams (Deng et al., 2021).
In this study, we conceptualized tourism live
streaming as a form of shopping live streams; each
mode links the features of live streaming with con­
sumption and creates a comfortable shopping atmo­
sphere for viewers (Hou et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2019).
Specifically, tourism live streaming is defined as live
streaming related to the promotion and sale of tour­
ism products (e.g., hotel accommodation, airfares,
and tickets to scenic spots), which is mostly initiated
by tourism enterprises. Nevertheless, there exist a few
differences between tourism live streams and other
types of shopping live streams that refer to the live
streams related to selling food, clothing, beauty pro­
ducts, daily necessities and so on. Firstly, in terms of

the nature of products, tourism products are essen­
tially experience products (Adhikari, 2015), rather
than tangible products that could be directly deliv­
ered to consumers. Consumers must travel to the
destinations to consume the tourism products. In
order to protect the interests of viewers, the products
sold in tourism live streams are actually rights to use
tourism products for a specific period of time.
Moreover, tourism enterprises usually often maintain
comprehensive policies for returns of products, for
example, all pre-sale products support un-booked
expired refunds and can be refunded at any time. In
comparison to other shopping live streams, tourism
live streams allow viewers more flexibility for post-
consumption regret and canceling orders at any time.
Therefore, tourism live streams are more likely to
promote viewers to purchase right away. Secondly,
tourism products have strong hedonic nature (Kang,
2020). In the tourism live streaming context, tourism
products could give viewers senses of pleasure,
enjoyment and relaxation, coupled with a cheerful
atmosphere in the live streaming room, which
attracts the viewer’s attention more than other shop­
ping live streaming. What’s more, products promoted
and sold in tourism live streams are not individual
products, but bundled products including hotels,
meals and air tickets. Combining products with a
low price promotion may impress viewers and com­
pel them to purchase right away.
Viewers’ immediate purchase behavior during live
streaming could generate substantial revenue and
great economic benefits for enterprises within a
short time. We hence suggest that it is valuable and
essential to explore the formation mechanism of
viewers’ immediate buying in tourism live streaming
context. However, to date, studies on tourism live
streaming remain in a nascent stage; most have
involved qualitative research to conceptualize tourism
live streaming, identify characteristics of tourism live
streaming, the phenomenon of promotion on tourism
live‑streaming platforms, and other topics (Deng et
al., 2019, 2021; Lau, 2020). To our knowledge, little
work has examined the stimulating effects of tourism
live streaming’s characteristics on viewers’ immediate
buying behavior within this novel digital environ­
ment. Apart from that, the existing research on live
streams in social commerce has focused on viewers’
purchase intention rather than immediate buying
behavior from various perspectives. For instance,
from a personal standpoint, audience members’
involvement positively influenced their purchase
intentions (Wang & Wu, 2019). Regarding the features
of streamers themselves, their attractiveness,
JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 111
trustworthiness, sense of humor, warmth and exper­
tise positively influenced viewers’ purchases (Deng et
al., 2019, 2021; Guo et al., 2022; Hou et al., 2019; Lau,
2020; Park & Lin, 2020; Xu et al., 2019). Concerning
advertised products, product quality could engender
viewers’ trust in a product and inspire purchase
intention (Chen et al., 2020). The extant literature
has largely ignored viewers’ immediate buying beha­
vior based on live streaming’s attributes as a media
form. Besides immediate purchases, viewers’ inten­
tions to continue watching live streams can also
play a critical role in generating ongoing revenue;
this outcome follows from the accumulation of online
traffic, which can lead to product sales through mon­
etization in the future. Yet continuous watching
intention, as the main aspect of viewers’ behavioral
intentions, has not received sufficient academic atten­
tion. This paper intend to comprehensively examine
literature on live streams to extract the significant
characteristics of tourism live streams, and further
explore the influential mechanism of which on view­
ers’ immediate buying behavior and continuous
watching intentions.
The characteristics of tourism live streaming
We listed out major studies on live streams’ charac­
teristics in Table 1. According to the literature sum­
marized in Table 1, almost all of the research
suggests that interactivity is a significant characteris­
tic of live streams. For example, Kang et al. (2020)
pinpointed interactivity as a key attribute of live
streaming. Other scholars also have highlighted real-
time interaction as a unique characteristic of live
streaming (Hou et al., 2019; Wongkitrungrueng &
Assarut, 2020). Sun et al. (2019) suggested that meta­
voicing affordance is a technical feature of the shop­
ping live streams. To some extent, the metavoicing
affordance could be considered as an interactivity
attribute as well, because it reflects the interaction
between customers and streamers through the bullet
screen or live chat rooms (Sun et al., 2019). Based on
affordances theory, Deng et al. (2021) revealed that
tourism live streams possessed interactivity affor­
dance. Tourism live streams are essentially an inter­
active form of socio-technical practice that is
characterized by the real-time production and con­
sumption of visual tourism media through a live
streaming platform (Deng et al., 2021). The interactiv­
ity best reflects the essential attribute of tourism live
streaming as a new social media. Notably, the inter­
activity of tourism live streams emphasizes the real-
time interaction between streamers and viewers.
112 X. LV ET AL.

Table 1. Summary of studies on live streams’ characteristics.

Type of live streams Characteristics Sources
Live streaming video platform Perceived interaction Hou and Yang (2015)
Perceived playfulness
Live video streaming Authenticity Tang et al. (2016)
Live streaming shopping Simultaneity Cai et al. (2018)
Authenticity
Social commerce and live streaming Real-time interaction Wongkitrungrueng and Assarut (2020)
Live-streaming Entertainment Chen and Lin (2018)
Social interaction
Live streaming Social interaction Zhou et al. (2019)
Live streaming Real-time interaction Hou et al. (2019)
New monetization model
Live streaming shopping Visibility Sun et al. (2019)
Metavoicing affordance
Guidance shopping
Online live-streaming videos for e-commerce Information quality Xu et al. (2019)
Entertainment
Para-social interaction
Broadcaster-attractiveness
Live streaming tourism Authenticity Deng et al. (2019)
Real time
Social interaction
Presence
Live streaming commerce Interactivity Kang et al. (2020)
Timeliness
Tourism live-streaming High information quality Lau (2020)
Tourism live-streaming Temporal affordance Deng et al. (2021)
Spatial affordance
Interactivity affordance
Social affordance

Drawing on the study of Deng et al. (2021), we adopt
interactivity as a core characteristic of tourism live
streams from the lens of affordance theory. In this
study, interactivity has integrated the characteristics
of social interaction, real-time or simultaneity men­
tioned by many scholars.
In essence, live streams could be considered as adver­
tisements that attract viewers, promote or sell the pro­
ducts or services (Hou et al., 2019). Thus, tourism live
streams can also serve as advertising stimuli. Based on
the theory of Ducoffe’s web advertising model, cognitive
factors, such as informativeness, is a predicator of adver­
tising value (Kim & Han, 2014). The informativity hence
could be also a significant value of tourism live streams.
Most studies on live streaming have indicated that the
provided product information is abundant, useful and
timely (Kang et al., 2020; Sun et al., 2019; Xu et al., 2019).
For instance, Kang et al. (2020) argued that live streams
possessed a feature of timeliness, which refers to live
streaming offers viewers timely information. Sun et al.
(2019) proposed the visibility feature, which essentially
meant live streams provided detailed and visible pro­
duct information for consumers. We infer that visibility
might serve as the reflection of informativity. Lau (2020)
pointed out that tourism live-streaming platforms
offered customers complete, detailed, current, and accu­
rate information. Furthermore, authenticity mentioned
in some research means that the information about
tourism products (e.g., the environment of hotels or
scenic spots) transferred by live streams is unedited,
practical and realistic (Deng et al., 2021; Tang et al.,
2016), which also is a representation of informativity.
Thus, we adopt informativity in this study to represent
the informational characteristic of tourism live streams.
Ducoffe’s web advertising model suggests that enter­
tainment is a starting point to justify how consumers
evaluate the value of advertisements (Martins et al.,
2019). Similarly, entertainment could be a value of tour­
ism live streams. Chen and Lin (2018), as well as Xu et al.
(2019) have noted the entertainment characteristic of
live streaming. As for the perceived playfulness pro­
posed in Tang et al.’s (2016) study, it is the degree
where the use of the live streams is perceived fun or
enjoyable by the viewers, and also is a representation of
entertainment. Most live streams can provide viewers
with entertainment (Deng et al., 2021). The tourism live
streams are more likely to possess entertainment attri­
butes because most tourism products have hedonic
characteristics (Kang, 2020), which can enhance viewers’
shopping experiences by making them enjoyable, plea­
sant and relaxed (Hou et al., 2019; Wongkitrungrueng &
Assarut, 2020). Therefore, entertainment is identified as
another important element of tourism live streams.
Prior research has confirmed that consumers
would find shopping live streams characteristics and
form perceptions about them, while watching watch

live streams (Sun et al., 2019). Therefore, we consider
together the tourism live streams characteristics,
viewers’ perceptions and behaviors, rather than ana­
lyzing them separately. This study would use the
AIDA theory to explain how tourism live streams
characteristics impact viewers’ decision-making pro­
cesses of the immediate buying behavior and contin­
uous watching intentions.
Attention-interest-desire-action (AIDA) model
The AIDA model is known to be a major theory of adver­
tising and communication, usually utilized to measure the
effectiveness of advertising and illustrate the consumers’
purchase behavior process (Song et al., 2021; Xu & Schrier,
2019). This model proposes that consumers undergo four
phases when making purchase decisions: (1) attract con­
sumers’ attention; (2) engage consumers’ interest in pro­
ducts or services; (3) create desires for products or
services; (4) inspire consumers’ purchase (Lee et al.,
2018; Xu & Schrier, 2019). To date, the AIDA model has
been extensively employed to assess consumers’ future
intentions impacted by marketing activities such as pro­
motions and advertising (Song et al., 2021).
We suggest that the AIDA model is also applicable to
delineate the impact of tourism live streaming on viewers’
immediate buying behavior and continuous watching
intentions. Thus, this model was employed for the theore­
tical underpinning of this study (Figure 1). By blending
experience sharing with product sales, tourism live-
streaming platforms function both as advertising channels
Characteristics
Informativity
H1a
H2a
Entertainment
H1b Immersion
H2b
H1c
Interactivity
Attention
Moderating effects
Gender (a), age (b),
watching experience (c), time pressure (d)
Figure 1. Conceptual model.
JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 113
and interactive communities (Chen et al., 2020). For view­
ers, tourism live streaming limited to 1–3 hours constructs a
unique shopping environment by integrating informativity,
entertainment and interactivity. These characteristics may
attract viewers’ attention and induce them to obtain a
sense of immersion. Because tourism live streaming is real-
time, viewers’ interest in the promoted products and live
streams are most likely sparked by platform attributes and
immersion. The interest could further promote buying
tourism products immediately through sparking their buy­
ing desires or directly inspire viewers’ continuous watching
intentions.
In tourism live streaming, viewers’ immediate buy­
ing behavior differs from future purchase intention or
well-planned purchases made in the future. Thus, live
streams elicit a short decision route in the form of
immediate buying behavior that depends on the fact
that the tourism live streaming gives chances to
make the advertising/promotion exposure and view­
ers’ purchase behavior occur at the same time point.
Moreover, each tourism live streaming revolves
around different destinations and provides different
products. Consequently, the discounts and promo­
tions for tourism products of a particular destination
exist only for 1–3 hours of a tourism live streaming.
As soon as this live streaming ends, the correspond­
ing discounts cease to exist. If viewers do not place
orders to buy products immediately, they will lose
the opportunities to purchase the preferential pro­
ducts which they desire to buy. Thus, within a brief
period of watching live streaming, viewers may
Immediate
Product interest H3a Buying desire H4 buying
behavior
H5a
H3b
Live streaming Continuous
interest H5b watching
intention
Interest Desire Action
H6
114 X. LV ET AL.
choose to purchase tourism products immediately
after sensing a desire, rather than after generating
product memories to do so. However, according to
the traditional AIDMA model, previous tourism adver­
tisements or promotions offered by asynchronous
online marketing channels make the advertising/pro­
motion exposure and viewers’ purchase behavior
occur at different time points. This implies that view­
ers with product memories may not buy the adver­
tised products until some time in the future, differing
from the decision-making process of immediate buy­
ing behavior in our AIDA model. Thus, the proposed
AIDA model with a four-stage linear sequential pro­
cess could provide a clearer picture of viewers’ beha­
vior related to tourism live streams.
Tourism live streaming characteristics and viewers’
immersion
Immersion refers to the complete invasion of the
experiential context into people’s perceptual systems
and psychological processes, to make the immersed
persons become involved, absorbed, and fully
engrossed in that (Cuny et al., 2015). Yang et al.
(2021) suggested that immersion is a subjective per­
ception of objective properties in a virtual reality
system that could be used to illustrate the involved
or engaged state of vlogs’ viewers. As a type of new
media form, tourism live streams essentially create a
virtual traveling and shopping environment. Thus,
immersion also can be adopted to reflect that viewers
frequently experience a sense of engrossment and
deep focus free from distraction within the limited
duration of watching tourism live streams. And
further, the immersion of viewers is featured by
deep involvement in the present moment, and it
might not be a permanent state (Cuny et al., 2015;
Hudson et al., 2019). The study of Hudson et al.
(2019) indicated that immersion, as the results from
peoples’ interaction with a specific environment,
heavily relied on the features of the environment. In
the context of tourism live streams, we hence expect
the generation of viewers’ immersion also depends
on three characteristics of tourism live streams.
The first characteristic is informativity. It refers to the
products information contained in a tourism live stream­
ing is informative and comprehensive (Jeon et al., 2018;
Lau, 2020). Information shared through tourism live
streams include tourism products and shopping gui­
dance disseminated via video, audio, and text (Deng et
al., 2019; Lau, 2020). Prior research has indicated that
when consumers considered the online travel site or
smartphone advertisement as informative and useful,
their attention increased, and they could become more
absorbed in that (Gao & Bai, 2014; Jeon et al., 2018;
Martins et al., 2019). The informativity of tourism live
streaming also refers to the products information con­
venience, accuracy and up-to-date (Lau, 2020). Scholars
have asserted that access to convenient, accurate and
current information offered by online travel websites
would captivate consumers, and further lead them to
deeper immersion in the website (Gao & Bai, 2014; Jeon
et al., 2018). Thus, the informativity of tourism live
streams could also enhance viewers’ attention and lead
them to become immersed in it.
The second characteristic is entertainment. According
to Martins et al. (2019), entertainment refers to the abil­
ity of an advertisement to promote enjoyment and cre­
ate positive consumer attitudes by providing a form of
escapism, diversion or emotional release. Within live
streams, the purpose of entertainment is to make view­
ers feel happy, funny, or relieve pressure (Chen & Lin,
2018). For tourism live streaming, the hedonic content
(e.g., streamers’ talent shows or sitcoms) coupled with
the combination of audio and video media, renders itself
inherently entertaining (Deng et al., 2019). And the
entertainment associated with tourism live streams can
offer viewers a sense of fun, pleasure, and relaxation.
Prior research has indicated that the entertainment of
smartphone advertisements leads to heighten consu­
mers’ focused attention and further make them enter a
flow state (Martins et al., 2019). Similarly, entertainment
of tourism live streams may therefore capture viewers’
focused attention and further make them immersed in
live streams.
Interactivity, as the third characteristic, is a critical
factor to drive audiences to use live streams (Hou et al.,
2019). Within live streams, interactivity highlights the
degree to which participants can communicate synchro­
nously that could be deemed as the “real-time” interac­
tion (Etemad-Sajadi, 2016; Hou et al., 2019). Thus, in
tourism live streams context, interactivity refers to the
streamers and audiences, as well as among audience
members who could communicate in real-time (Deng
et al., 2019; Hou et al., 2019). Live-streaming platforms
enable viewers to post questions and comments for
streamers and other viewers through danmaku, which
is defined as comments generated from live chat rooms
that scroll across the screen in real-time (Zhou et al.,
2019). Streamers can then directly respond to viewers
when introducing tourism products, while other viewers
can also follow up on responses during live streams.
Most studies have shown that the interactivity features
provided by VR technology could induce consumers to
be completely absorbed, or have a sense of immersion

(Yim et al., 2017). Sun et al. (2019) have noted that the
interactions between consumers and streamers could
assist consumers to generate immersion. Similarly, we
argue that the interactivity of tourism live streams helps
viewers focus on the tourism products, advertised activ­
ities, streamers, and other audience members, and pro­
mote the formation of immersion.
Overall, the unique characteristics of tourism live
streams, including informativity, entertainment, and
interactivity, are likely critical antecedents of viewers’
immersion. We thus propose the following hypotheses
H1a: The informativity of tourism live streaming posi­
tively influences viewers’ immersion.
H1b: The entertainment of tourism live streaming posi­
tively influences viewers’ immersion.
H1c: The interactivity of tourism live streaming positively
influences viewers’ immersion.
Viewers’ product/live-streaming interest
There exist different levels in the AIDA model. The cog­
nitive level is the attention stage that is when consu­
mers’ attention can be drawn (Hassan et al., 2015). The
affective level is the interest phase, which refers to con­
sumers having interest in the products or services
offered (Song et al., 2021). The AIDA model suggests
that once consumers’ attention is gained, the next step
is to arouse the consumers’ interest. As discussed pre­
viously, immersion reflects the state of viewers’ focused
attention or a sense of engrossment and could be
deemed the attention stage of viewers. We thus expect
that immersion as an aspect of viewers’ cognition, could
positively influence viewers’ interest that is an aspect of
affection; this relationship will be explained in greater
detail below.
Various research has suggested that once consumers
pay attention to media stimuli, which could lead to them
having interest in products, services, or brands in the
media (Song et al., 2021). Based on the AIDA model, Lee
et al. (2018) have concluded that the pop culture could
attract fans’ attention to people, products, and places,
which positively affect the fans’ interest in the pop cul­
ture – featured destination. Other scholars also have
confirmed that consumers’ attention to the advertise­
ments of food-delivery app leads to them becoming
interested in delivery apps, food, or restaurants (Song
et al., 2021). Turning to the context of tourism live
streaming, we therefore presume that, as viewers’
focused attention is attracted by the live streaming,
JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 115
that is viewers are immersed in the live streaming, they
would become strongly interested in the tourism pro­
ducts recommended.
Apart from tourism products, streamers and live
streaming content are also important components of
tourism live streaming. When viewers were immersed
in a tourism live streaming, their focused attention to
the streamers and displayed content increased. The
enjoyable environment created by streamers can lead
to positive evaluations, causing viewers to express favor­
able attitudes toward streamers (Hou et al., 2019) along
with greater interest in them as individuals (Heo et al.,
2020). Furthermore, greater attention to live streaming
can enhance viewers’ understanding of the content and
arouse their interest in it (Heo et al., 2020). Drawing on
the discussions above, we thus expect that the greater
consumers are immersed in a tourism live streaming, the
greater their interest in the tourism products, streamers
and live streaming content. The following hypotheses
are proposed:
H2a: Viewers’ immersion positively influences their pro­
duct interest.
H2b: Viewers’ immersion positively influences their
interest in live streaming.
Viewers’ desires to buy products
Desire, as the third stage of the linear sequential
process in the AIDA model, is defined that consumer’s
passion towards a brand or product (Wijaya, 2015).
The AIDA theory posits that desire is an emotion
aroused by interest. That is to say, after generating
interest, consumers would feel desires to acquire the
products or service (Song et al., 2021). Therefore, inter­
est is usually deemed as the critical antecedent of
desires to acquire products or services (Hassan et al.,
2015; Lee et al., 2018). We hence assume that viewers’
interest will positively affect their buying desires as
described below
Strong (1925) has pointed that if consumers have
no interest or their interest decreases in products,
there are few desires to get the product. That implies
there exists a strong relationship between interest
and desires. Lee et al. (2018) have found that pop
culture fans’ interest in the pop culture-featured des­
tination could positively influence their desires to
travel the destination. Thus, we presume that if view­
ers generate interest in products recommended by
tourism live streams, they are more likely to have
desires to buy products.
116 X. LV ET AL.
Similarly, we anticipated that viewers’ interest in
live streaming (i.e., streamers and live streams’ con­
tent) may play a significant role in promoting their
buying desires. Viewers who are interested in strea­
mers are likely to demonstrate positive attitudes
toward them, which can then be transferred to adver­
tised products (Park & Lin, 2020), and further boost
viewers’ purchase desires. Moreover, Viewers’ interest
in live-streaming content further implies that they
react positively to it. If viewers hold positive attitudes
towards content, their product-related attitudes
would enhance (Park & Lin, 2020), which further pro­
motes buying desires. Accordingly, we proposed the
following hypotheses
H3a: Viewers’ product interest positively influences their
buying desires
H3b: Viewers’ live streaming interest positively influ­
ences their buying desires
Immediate buying behavior and continuous
watching intention
According to the study of Zogaj et al. (2019), they
divided consumers’ behavior into product-related short-
term behavior (i.e., willingness to pay) and brand-related
long-term behavior (i.e., brand loyalty). Similarly, we thus
differentiated between two types of behavior among
viewers of tourism live streaming: (1) immediate buying
behavior (i.e., short-term behavior) and (2) continuous
watching intention (i.e., a signal of loyalty denoting
long-term behavioral intention). We expect to explain
the influential factors of viewers’ immediate buying
behavior and continuous watching intentions in greater
detail below.
Immediate buying behavior, as the short-term
behavior, commonly refers to unplanned, impulsive,
and hedonic purchases, wherein consumers make
quick buying decisions without careful deliberation
(Beatty & Ferrell, 1998; Chih et al., 2012). It comple­
tely differentiates from purchase intention, because
the decision-making time is so short and the pur­
chase is unreflective (im & Johnson, 2016). In the
case of tourism live streaming, immediate buying
behavior refers to placing orders at once to instantly
acquire the usage rights of a tourism product adver­
tised for a period of validity. From a short term
perspective, live-streaming purchases can generate
quick cash earnings through interactive direct selling
channel.
S-Commerce innovations have made it possible for
consumers to access products and services instantly
(Gong et al., 2020). In this regard, live-streaming plat­
forms' s-commerce capabilities also facilitate viewers'
immediate purchasing decisions in a tourism marketing
context.
In the AIDA theory, action is defined as a consu­
mer’s final decision or the purchase behavior by the
consumer (Lee et al., 2018). While desire is not only a
driving force that causes consumers’ intentions or
actions, but also a mediator between consumers’
interest and their actions (Lee et al., 2018; Song et
al., 2021). Most research has argued that consumers
could first feel the spontaneous desires to buy pro­
ducts, which can be irresistible and dominant, before
actual buying behaviors (Beatty & Ferrell, 1998;
Huang, 2016). In other words, consumers’ swift and
immediate desires to purchase something lead to
their impulse buying behavior (Huang, 2016).
Therefore, we infer that viewers’ buying desires play
a significant role in forming their immediate buying
behaviors in tourism live streaming.
H4: buying desires positively affect viewers’ immediate
buying behavior
Continuous watching intention refers to viewers’
enduring, sustained preference for live streams; this
attribute can be regarded as a proxy of viewers’
loyalty (Hou et al., 2019; Hu et al., 2017). In the
tourism research field, tourists’ attitudinal loyalty
manifests revisit intention or recommendation inten­
tion, which is also named word-of-mouth (Nilplub et
al., 2016). Based on this, we suggest that continuous
watching intention could manifest viewers’ own
intentions to continue watching and frequently
watch live streaming (Hou et al., 2019). Meanwhile,
as a manifestation of viewers’ loyalty, it might also
imply viewers recommend their relatives and friends
to continue watching and frequently watch live
streaming. Continuous watching intention is consid­
ered long-term behavioral intention in this study; the
construct features time continuity and the potential
to continue creating value for enterprises in the
future, such as by attracting and accumulating traffic
through live streaming and promoting traffic moneti­
zation (Hou et al., 2019). Thus, continuous watching
intention is more important than immediate buying
behavior. Faced with increasingly fierce competition
in the online travel market, securing and maintaining
viewers’ continuous watching intentions would be a
focus for tourism enterprises that use live streaming
as a marketing channel (Hu et al., 2017).

Scholars have verified that product interest positively
influences customers’ loyalty (Hochgraefe et al., 2012).
Regarding tourism live streaming, loyalty manifests as
viewers’ continuous watching intentions (Hou et al.,
2019; Hu et al., 2017). We hence surmise that product
interest might positively influence continuous watching
intention of viewers. Prior research points that consu­
mers who are interested in retailers have higher inten­
tions to future repatronage and positive word-of-mouth
(Jones & Reynolds, 2006). We propose that viewers inter­
ested in tourism products will continue watching live
streaming and recommend relatives or friends to con­
tinue to watch.
Once viewers become interested in streamers and
possess favorable attitudes towards or identify with
them, the audiences can be driven to continue watching
(Hou et al., 2019). For instance, viewers may choose to
follow specific hosts’ live streams (Hu et al., 2017).
Additionally, the more appealing the content presented
via online interactive media, the more attention it will
receive (Park & Lin, 2020). Once viewers are interested in
live-streaming content, they may start to continuously
watch live streaming to alleviate stress, escape from
reality (Heo et al., 2020; Sjöblom et al., 2017). In essence,
viewers with interest in tourism live streams are more
likely to continue to watch the live streams, and also
recommend relatives and friends to watch continuously.
We thus propose the following hypotheses:
H5a: Product interest positively influences viewers’ con­
tinuous watching intentions.
H5b: Live streaming interest positively influences view­
ers’ continuous watching intentions.
The moderating effects of demographic factors,
watching experience and time pressure
The sociodemographic factors, such as gender and
age, are widely used as important moderating vari­
ables in tourist and consumer research (Zheng et al.,
2021). For example, in the context of online pur­
chasing, males and females differ in terms of shop­
ping habits, perceptions of web characteristics and
perceptions of online atmosphere (Zhang et al.,
2021). Social psychology literature has indicated
that there exist significant attitudinal and behavioral
differences between males and females in various
decision-making processes, especially in purchase
decision-making (Dedeoglu, 2019; Shao et al., 2019;
Zhang et al., 2021). Choi and Park (2017) found that
JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 117
the females have stronger desires to shop in a duty-
free store, which increased their behavioral
intentions.
Previous research has implied that consumers of dif­
ferent age profiles exhibit unique needs, wants and pre­
ferences, resulting in different behaviors (Khan et al.,
2020). For example, the elderly are inclined to have
greater emotional control and maturity than the young,
which leads to different types of purchases (Khan et al.,
2020). Chopdar and Balakrishnan (2020) revealed that
compared with the elderly, young consumers are more
likely to engage in impulsive buying. In terms of using
new technology, the young and the elderly could also
react differently (Zhang et al., 2021). Young people pos­
sessed more positive attitudes towards the new technol­
ogy. Consequently, this study proposed the following
hypotheses:
H6a: Gender moderates the relationships among the
characteristics of tourism live streaming, immersion,
interest, desires and behavioral intentions.
H6b: Age moderates the relationships among the char­
acteristics of tourism live streaming, immersion, interest,
desires and behavioral intentions.
Watching experience of live streaming is compar­
able to internet experience in other online shopping
conexts. Watching experience refers to the general
experience viewers obtain by watching tourism live
streaming (Chang & Chen, 2008). Previous literature
has suggested that internet experience could be
deemed as a moderating variable because the users
with different levels of internet experience would
perceive the characteristics of online channels differ­
ently (Zhu & Zhang, 2010). For example, users who
have greater internet experience perceived higher
usefulness of online channels, and are more likely to
use that to collect product information (Zhu & Zhang,
2010). Some scholars have indicated that internet
experience significantly affects consumers’ percep­
tions, attitudes, and behavior in online environment
(Chang & Chen, 2008). For instance, consumers with
greater and longer internet experience might have a
higher probability of online purchase (Chang & Chen,
2008). Therefore, the following hypothesis is
proposed:
H6c: Watching experience moderates the relation­
ships among the characteristics of tourism live
streaming, immersion, interest, desires and behavioral
intentions.
118 X. LV ET AL.
Time pressure is deemed as an important situa­
tional variable impacting consumers’ decision-
making behavior, and it refers to the inadequacy of
the time available for information processing or deci­
sion making as perceived by consumers (Lin & Chen,
2013; Lv et al., 2021). Prior study has concluded that
time pressure hastened consumers’ decision-
making process (Peng et al., 2019). The higher the
time pressure, the shorter the decision-making time,
and consumers are more likely to engage in impulse
buying (Zhao et al., 2019). According to Sohn and Lee
(2017), the influence of emotions on impulse buying
is strengthened in high time pressure conditions.
Additionally, time pressure also impacts individuals’
cognitive processes in situations where they must
make decisions (Sohn & Lee, 2017). For instance,
under high time pressure conditions, consumers
would engage in less information processing (Lv et
al., 2021). In the context of tourism live streaming,
merchants frequently create urgency and scarcity by
offering time-bound limited inventory. Time pressure
is perceived by viewers as a result of this. Thus, this
study proposes the following hypothesis:
H6d: Time pressure moderates the relationships among
the characteristics of tourism live streaming, immersion,
interest, desires and behavioral intentions.
Methodology
Survey instrument
The questionnaire used for data collection consisted
of five sections. The first part measured the charac­
teristics of tourism live streams, including informa­
tivity, entertainment, and interactivity. The second
section was developed to assess the respondents’
psychological processes as they watched tourism
live streams. Specifically, it measured respondents’
immersion in the tourism live streams, their interest
in tourism products and tourism live streams, their
desires to buy products recommended in tourism
live streams, and respondents’ memory about tour­
ism products. The third section evaluated respon­
dents’ immediate buying behavior and continuous
watching intentions. The fourth section measured
respondents’ perception of time pressure. Finally,
respondents were asked to report their gender and
age, and indicate their experience of watching tour­
ism live streaming.
All measures were derived from existing research,
and some items were adapted to suit this study’s
context (Table A1 of Appendix A). Informativity was
measured using five items adapted from Gao and Bai
(2014) and Jeon et al. (2018). Entertainment was
measured with five items adapted from Gao and Bai
(2014) as well as Chen and Lin (2018). Interactivity
was measured with four items from Hou et al. (2019).
A three-item measure of immersion was adapted
from Yim et al. (2017). Product interest and live-
streaming interest were each assessed with items
from Cheah et al. (2019). Buying desire and product
memory were each measured by three items adapted
from Wei and Lu (2013). Two-item measures of
immediate buying behavior were adapted from A. J.
Kim and Johnson (2016). Five-item measures of con­
tinuous watching intention were adapted from Hou
et al. (2019) as well as Xu and Gursoy (2020).
Perceived time pressure was measured with three
items adapted from Lin and Chen (2013). All items
were scored on a 7-point Likert scale ranging from
1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree.
Sampling and data collection
This study utilized an onsite survey to collect data. The
research population involved those who had experi­
ence of watching tourism live streaming in the past.
Before September 12, 2021, we commissioned a profes­
sional research firm to recruit participants who had
watched tourism live streaming. The specific recruit­
ment process was that participants were first instructed
to read about the concept of tourism live streaming,
and further were asked to answer a screening question
(“Have you had the experience of watching tourism live
streaming in the past?”). Those people who had not
watched tourism live streaming were excluded and
could not subsequently participate in the onsite survey.
Finally, a total of 449 respondents with tourism live
streaming watching experience voluntarily participated
in the onsite survey. we explained the purpose of this
study to them, and ensured that the data collected only
were used for scientific research. Moreover, we also
promised to give 10 RMB and gifts as a token of appre­
ciation to those participants.
The onsite survey was conducted in the behavior
research lab, and the data were gathered through the
questionnaire survey from September 16 to October 12,
2021. All participants were required to watch a clip inter­
cepted from the same Trip.com live streaming, which
lasted about ten minutes. We selected Trip.com live
 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 119

streaming for two reasons. Firstly, Trip.com live streaming Results and analysis
has become one of the most influential tourism live
streaming in China. By the end of 2020, Trip.com live Measurement model analysis
streaming has been conducted 118 times, achieving the
Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) using the maximum
total amount of pre-sale transactions of over 4 billion
likelihood method was employed to test the reliability
RMB. Secondly, it has been one of the most popular live
and validity of the measurement model. Findings
streaming among consumers. The data of iiMedia showed
demonstrated a good model fit, exceeding the fit indices
that consumers who watched tourism live streams on
recommended by Hair et al. (1998) (χ2/df = 1.33,
Trip.com platform accounted for 40% of in 2020.
RMSEA = .03, GFI = .92, CFI = .99, TLI = 0.98; IFI = 0.99).
Furthermore, participants were asked to fill out the ques­
Cronbach’s α coefficients and composite reliability were
tionnaires while watching the live streaming. Through an
each used to examine constructs’ reliability. As displayed
onsite survey, our goal was to get an accurate picture of
in Table 3, the Cronbach’s α coefficients of all constructs
the viewers' perceptions and behavior when watching
were higher than 0.7, indicating good reliability. The
tourism live streaming. Therefore, our data should be
composite reliability values of all constructs ranged
more accurate and credible than those collected via audi­
from .84 to .95, well above the suggested value of 0.7
ence recall, a common method in earlier studies on live
(Hair et al., 2014), further confirming the constructs’
streaming (Guo et al., 2022; Hou et al., 2019).
reliability. All constructs’ standard factor loadings were
A total of 449 surveys were initially returned.
higher than 0.7, and average variance extracted (AVE)
Invalid copies were screened out based on response
values were higher than the cutoff value of 0.5 (Fornell &
time and completeness, leaving 424 valid surveys.
Larcker, 1981), reflecting sound convergent validity.
Table 2 lists the sample’s demographic characteris­
Discriminant validity was tested by comparing the
tics. Of the participants, 47.64% were males and
square root of the AVE of each construct with the corre­
52.36% were females. The majority of participants
lations between constructs. Table 4 shows that the
(64.39%) were between the ages of 18 and 40.
square root of the AVE for all constructs was greater
About half (50.71%) held a bachelor’s degree.
than the inter-construct correlations, providing evidence
Regarding income, 45.28% earned 5,001–8,000 CNY
of discriminant validity.
per month. A slight majority had more than one
year’s tourism live streaming watching experience
(53.77%).
Structural model analysis
Structural model analysis on AIDA model
Common method bias Structural equation modeling was performed by using
Prior to evaluating the measurement model and AMOS 26.0 to test the proposed hypotheses. The overall
structural model, this study conducted the common fit indices reflected a good model fit (χ2/df = 1.71,
RMSEA = .04, GFI = .90, CFI = .97, TLI = 0.97, IFI = .97).
method bias analysis. To reduce the possibility of
All hypotheses and path coefficients were summarized
common method bias, we adopted widely recom­
in Table 5 and presented in Figure 2. Overall, every
mended procedures (Tehseen et al., 2017) when
hypothesis was supported except for H3b.
designing and distributing the survey. For example,
Informativity (β = .30, t = 5.97, p < .001), entertain­
we measured the same variable with multiple items,
ment (β = .38, t = 7.34, p < .001), and interactivity
avoided vague expressions, and made it difficult for
(β = .21, t = 3.80, p < .001) each had a positive impact
participants to guess the study’s objectives or rela­ on immersion. These results supported H1a, H1b, and
tionships between variables. We also applied the H1c. Immersion had a positive effect on product interest
Harman’s single-factor test using EFA procedure to (β = .66, t = 13.74, p < .001) and tourism live streaming
assess the severity of common method bias interest (β = .51, t = 9.54, p < .001), supporting H2a and
(Podsakoff & Organ, 1986). The factor analysis with H2b. Product interest positively influenced buying desire
an unrotated factor solution showed that about (β = .59, t = 11.72, p < .001), and further buying desire
37.63% of the total variance (not exceeding the had a positive impact on immediate buying behavior
threshold of 50%) was accounted for by the first (β = .60, t = 11.66, p < .001). Whereas, tourism live
single factor. Thus, this was evident that the com­ streaming interest had no impact on buying desire
mon method variance is not a significant concern in (β = .08, t = 1.64, p > .05). Thus, H3a and H4 was
the present study (Podsakoff et al., 2003). supported but H3b was not. Both product interest
120 X. LV ET AL.

Table 2. Demographic characteristics of respondents (N = 424). The results revealed that in this study all hypoth­
Percentage eses were supported but H3b. This was consistent
Characteristics N (%)
with the results of the AIDA structural model analysis.
Gender Male 202 47.64
Female 222 52.36 Furthermore, whether in the AIDA model or in the
Age Below 18 13 3.07 AIDMA model, all path coefficients were the same. As
(years) 18–24 59 13.92
25–30 136 32.07 expected, buying desire did not affect product mem­
31–40 78 18.40 ory (β = −.10, t = −1.91, p > .05), and product
41–50 91 21.46
51–60 36 8.49
memory also had no significant influence on viewers’
Above 60 11 2.59 immediate buying behavior (β = −.02, t = −0.14, p
Education High school graduate and 61 14.39 > .05). The results greatly proved that product mem­
below
Bachelor’s degree 215 50.71 ory was not applicable to the viewers’ immediate
Master’s degree and above 148 34.90 buying decision-making processes in the context of
Monthly Income 5,000 or less 79 18.63
(CNY) 5,001–8,000 192 45.28 tourism live streaming. In conclusion, compared to
8,001–17,000 121 28.54 the AIDMA model, the AIDA model more fully
17,001–30,000 22 5.19
30,001 or more 10 2.36 explained the decision-making process behind
Watching within 6 months 29 6.84 immediate buying behavior.
experience 6–12 months 167 39.39
12–24 months 183 43.16
more than 24 months 45 10.61
Multi-group analysis
To examine the moderating effects of gender, age, watch­
(β = .22, t = 4.47, p < .001) and tourism live streaming
ing experience and time pressure, this study performed a
interest (β = .46, t = 8.16, p < .001) had a positive impact
multi-group analysis. A multi-group analysis is most often
on continuous watching intentions. Therefore, H5a and
used for the comparison of multiple samples across multi­
H5b were supported.
ple groups for any identified structural equation model, and
to test if there are significant differences across multiple
Structural model analysis on AIDMA model groups (Papastathopoulos et al., 2020). Prior performing the
In order to prove that memory does not apply to the multi-group analysis, the respondents were divided into
conceptual model constructed based on the immedi­ two groups at a time based on different categorical vari­
ate buying decisions of tourism live streaming, we ables such as gender, age, watching experience and time
also conducted a structural model analysis on pressure. Firstly, according to the criterion of gender, the
AIDMA model. Compared with AIDA model in our sample was divided into a male group and a female group.
study, the goodness of fit of AIDMA model was Moreover, we divided respondents into age-based groups,
reduced (χ2/df = 1.89, RMSEA = 0.05, GFI = 0.88, namely young viewers and old viewers. In addition, the
CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.96, IFI = .96). All hypotheses and respondents were divided into two groups based on the
path coefficients were summarized in Table 6 and level of watching experience, a high-level watching experi­
shown in Figure 3. ence group and a low-level watching experience group, by

Characteristics

Informativity Immediate
Product interest .59*** Buying desire .60*** buying
.30*** behavior
.66***

Entertainment .22***
.38*** Immersion
.08
.51***
.21*** Live streaming Continuous
Interactivity interest .46*** watching
intention

Attention Interest Desire Action

Figure 2. Structural model with standard path coefficients of AIDA model. Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 121

Table 3. Results of measurement model. loadings). The constrained model II was constrained to
Composite equal construct, measurement weights and structural
Constructs Items Loading Cronbach’s α Reliability AVE
weights (regression coefficients). We conducted a measure­
Informativity IN1 .87 .93 .93 .73
(IN) IN2 .85 ment invariance test by comparing the unconstrained mod­
IN3 .84 el’s fit to that of the constrained model I. The results
IN4 .86
IN5 .87 indicated the existence of measurement invariance across
Entertainment EN1 .89 .95 .95 .80 the two gender-based groups (p = 0.435, Δχ2 = 24.47,
(EN) EN2 .90
EN3 .91
Δdf = 24), the two age-based groups (p = 0.302,
EN4 .88 Δχ2 = 27.05, Δdf = 24), the two watching experience sub-
EN5 .89 groups (p = 0.516, Δχ2 = 23.06, Δdf = 24) and the two time
Interactivity IT1 .86 .91 .91 .73
(IT) IT2 .84 pressure sub-groups (p = 0.932, Δχ2 = 14.61, Δdf = 24).
IT3 .82 Furthermore, this study compared the constrained model
IT4 .89
Immersion IM1 .87 .90 .90 .76 I with constrained model II to test the differential effects
(IM) IM2 .84 between every two groups. Overall, the results indicated
IM3 .91
Product PI1 .90 .92 .92 .79 that there was a statistical significance across the two gen­
Interest PI2 .89 der-based groups (p < 0.001, Δχ2 = 42.93, Δdf = 10), the two
(PI) PI3 .88
Live -streaming LI1 .82 .84 .84 .64
age-based groups (p < 0.001, Δχ2 = 35.00, Δdf = 10), the two
Interest LI2 .76 watching experience-based groups (p < 0.001, Δχ2 = 39.10,
(LI) LI3 .82 Δdf = 10) and the two time pressure-based groups (p
Buying Desire BD1 .91 .91 .91 .77
(BD) BD2 .83 < 0.001, Δχ2 = 43.82, Δdf = 10). Therefore, the moderating
BD3 .90 effects of gender, age, watching experience and time pres­
Immediate Buying IB1 .91 .87 .87 .77
Behavior IB2 .85 sure were supported. To identify where the statistical differ­
(BI) ences existed, we compared the coefficients for each path
Continuous WI1 .87 .92 .92 .70
Watching WI2 .78 between the two groups (Table 7).
Intention WI3 .81 Gender. When it comes to gender, the multi-group
(WI) WI4 .84
WI5 .87
analysis results revealed that the structural multi-group
Time Pressure TP1 .92 .93 .93 .82 model fit the data well: χ2/df = 1.43, CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.96,
(TP) TP2 .83 IFI = 0.96, RMSEA = 0.03. Statistical tests suggested that
TP3 .95
Product Memory PM1 - .91 - - the moderating role of gender existed at two hypothe­
(PM) PM2 - sized paths. Specifically, the positive effect of buying
PM3 -
desire on immediate buying behavior was higher
among female (β = 0.74, t = 11.37, p < .001) than male
performing a median split. Finally, we divided the respon­ respondents (β = 0.46, t = 5.49, p < .001). Moreover, the
dents into two groups based on time pressure, also by positive effect of live streaming interest on continuous
using the method of a median split. Therefore, one group watching intention was stronger for female (β = 0.65, t
contained the viewers with high time pressure, while the = 7.76, p < .001) versus male (β = 0.27, t = 3.29, p < .01).
other group consisted of the viewers with low time Age. The structural multi-group model also displayed
pressure. a good fit (χ2/df = 1.51, CFI = 0.95, TLI = 0.95, IFI = 0.96,
We next establish two constrained models. The con­ RMSEA = 0.04). Results revealed that the path between
strained model I was the model constrained to equal con­ product interest and buying desire was significantly dif­
struct and measurement weights (latent construct factor ferent in age. For the young viewers group (β = 0.68, t

Table 4. Discriminant validity.

Variable IN EN IT IM PI LI BD BB WI TP
Informativity (IN) 0.85
Entertainment (EN) 0.53 0.89
Interactivity (IT) 0.60 0.63 0.85
Immersion (IM) 0.62 0.66 0.62 0.87
Product Interest (PI) 0.49 0.50 0.48 0.62 0.89
Live-streaming Interest (LI) 0.30 0.31 0.22 0.47 0.35 0.80
Buying Desire (BD) 0.42 0.49 0.46 0.53 0.60 0.25 0.88
Immediate Buying Behavior (IB) 0.27 0.29 0.36 0.49 0.36 0.17 0.60 0.88
Continuous Watching Intention (WI) 0.43 0.53 0.47 0.64 0.35 0.50 0.41 0.35 0.84
Time Pressure (TP) 0.40 0.41 0.39 0.57 0.38 0.27 0.35 0.26 0.51 0.91
Note. Numbers on the diagonal line represent the square root of the AVE of each construct; other numbers represent correlation coefficients between
constructs.
122 X. LV ET AL.

Table 5. Structural model results of AIDA model.
Hypothesis/Path
H1a : Informativity → immersion
H1b : Entertainment →immersion
H1c : Interactivity → immersion
H2a : Immersion → product
interest
H2b : Immersion → live streaming
interest
H3a : Product interest → buying
desire
H3b : Live-streaming interest →
buying desire
H4 : buying desire → immediate
buying behavior
H5a : Product interest →
continuous watching
intention
H5b : Live-streaming interest →
continuous watching
intention
Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
= 10.08, p < .001), the significant positive effect of buy­
Coefficient t-value Results ing desire on immediate buying behavior was signifi­
.30 5.97*** Supported cantly greater than the high watching experience
.38 7.34*** Supported
.21 3.80*** Supported group (β = 0.42, t = 6.13, p < .001).
.66 13.74*** Supported Time pressure. As for time pressure, the multi-group
.51 9.54*** Supported analysis results also revealed that the structural multi-
group model fit the data well: χ2/df = 1.51, CFI = 0.95,
.59 11.72*** Supported
TLI = 0.95, IFI = 0.95, RMSEA = 0.03. The statistical results
.08 1.64 Not showed that the moderating effect of watching experience
supported existed at two paths. To be specific, the significant positive
.60 11.66*** Supported
effect of informativity on immersion was stronger among
.22 4.47*** Supported low time pressure group (β = 0.36, t = 4.84, p < .001) than
high time pressure group (β = 0.26, t = 3.59, p < .001). And
.46 8.16*** Supported the positive effect of buying desire on immediate buying
behavior was greater for high time pressure group
(β = 0.71, t = 9.93, p < .001) versus low time pressure
group (β = 0.44, t = 4.02, p < .001) (Table B1).

Table 6. Structural model results of AIDMA model.

Hypothesis/Path Coefficient t-value Results
Discussion
Informativity → immersion .30 5.97*** Supported This study aimed to explore the decision-making pro­
Entertainment →immersion .38 7.34*** Supported
Interactivity → immersion .21 3.80*** Supported cesses involved in tourism live streaming viewers’
Immersion → product interest .66 13.71*** Supported immediate buying behavior and continuous watching
Immersion → live streaming .51 9.53*** Supported
interest intentions via an AIDA model. The results indicate sev­
Product interest → buying .59 11.65*** Supported eral interesting findings which will be discussed in the
desire
Live streaming interest → .08 1.56 Not following sections.
buying desire supported First, informativity, entertainment, and interactivity
buying desire → product −.10 −1.91 Not supported
memory
each positively affected viewers’ immersion. Regarding
product memory → immediate −.02 −0.14 Not supported informativity, tourism live streaming delivered compre­
buying behavior hensive, convenient, accurate and up-to-date products
Product interest → continuous .22 4.46*** Supported
watching intention information in real-time through visually enticing videos
Live streaming interest → .46 8.16*** Supported and streamers’ recommendations. Viewers paid focused
continuous watching
intention attention and immersed themselves in the live stream­
Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001. ing upon receiving the product information; this pattern
is consistent with work by Gao and Bai (2014).
Entertainment is most likely to lead viewers to become
= 9.57, p < .001), the positive effect of product interest more immersed in tourism live streaming. To render live
on buying desire was significantly greater than the older streams more appealing, streamers often integrate
viewers group (β = 0.38, t = 4.55, p < .001). Additionally, entertaining elements to create a pleasant atmosphere,
the path between buying desire and immediate buying as noted in prior research on live streaming (Chen & Lin,
behavior was also significantly different in age. For the 2018). In leisure time, viewers considered live streaming
young viewers group (β = 0.84, t = 10.72, p < .001), the akin to watching a variety show, and the entertainment
significant positive effect of buying desire on immediate appeared to help viewers destress and relax while
buying behavior was significantly greater than the older becoming immersed in live-streaming footage.
viewers group (β = 0.35, t = 3.93, p < .001). Furthermore, when viewers used the danmaku function
Watching experience. Concerning the watching to interact in real-time with streamers and other viewers,
experience, the goodness-of-fit statistics of the structural their focus and attention could be increased, and easily
multi-group model showed that the model reasonably generate a sense of immersion. Although its impact was
fit the data (χ2/df = 1.41, CFI = 0.96, TLI = 0.9, IFI = 0.96, not as high as that of entertainment and informativity,
RMSEA = 0.03). Results revealed that the path between interactivity also had a positive and significant effect on
buying desire and immediate buying behavior was sig­ viewers’ perceived immersion, echoing past studies
nificantly different in different levels of watching experi­ involving live streams shopping (Sun et al., 2019; Yim
ence. For the low watching experience group (β = 0.76, t et al., 2017).
Table 7. Pairwise parameter comparisons: Gender, age, watching experience, time pressure.
Gender, coefficient, t-value Age, coefficient, t-value Watching experience, coefficient, t-value Time pressure, coefficient, t-value
Path Male Female p-value Age (<41) Age (≥41) p-value Low High p-value Low High p-value
IN→IM 0.26 0.32 0.507 0.29 0.32 0.432 0.36 0.28 0.746 0.36 0.26 0.028
(3.39***) (4.73***) (4.06***) (4.30***) (4.41***) (4.19***) (4.84***) (3.59***)
EN→IM 0.33 0.42 0.447 0.32 0.47 0.151 0.30 0.45 0.148 0.41 0.30 0.091
(3.98***) (6.29***) (4.66***) (5.61***) (3.88***) (6.32***) (5.42***) (4.13***)
IT→IM 0.24 0.19 0.902 0.23 0.12 0.337 0.21 0.19 0.828 0.19 0.21 0.840
(3.01**) (2.41*) (3.03**) (1.38) (2.56*) (2.54*) (2.54*) (2.56*)
IM→PI 0.62 0.67 0.254 0.61 0.64 0.894 0.68 0.64 0.453 0.67 0.54 0.981
(8.55***) (10.37***) (8.88***) (8.72***) (9.62***) (9.69***) (8.64***) (7.91***)
IM→LI 0.36 0.65 0.070 0.47 0.59 0.239 0.56 0.48 0.537 0.59 0.42 0.114
(4.58***) (8.64***) (6.17***) (7.59***) (7.13***) (6.50***) (7.40***) (5.39***)
PI→BD 0.55 0.60 0.490 0.68 0.38 0.027 0.60 0.56 0.569 0.35 0.63 0.117
(7.40***) (8.65***) (9.57***) (4.55***) (7.89***) (8.25***) (3.93***) (8.99***)
LI→BD 0.09 0.10 0.873 0.11 0.16 0.567 0.10 0.08 0.757 0.11 0.13 0.856
(1.25) (1.43) (1.62) (1.87) (1.32) (1.12) (1.26) (1.89)
BD→IB 0.46 0.74 0.000 0.84 0.35 0.002 0.76 0.42 0.006 0.44 0.71 0.003
(5.49***) (11.37***) (10.72***) (3.93***) (10.08***) (6.13***) (4.02***) (9.93***)
PI→WI 0.29 0.13 0.089 0.26 0.18 0.281 0.14 0.30 0.060 0.12 0.26 0.148
(3.65***) (1.98*) (3.83***) (2.27*) (1.84) (4.47***) (1.53) (3.91***)
LI→WI 0.27 0.65 0.000 0.50 0.45 0.233 0.60 0.38 0.078 0.55 0.43 0.890
(3.29**) (7.76***) (6.10***) (5.31***) (6.80***) (5.14***) (6.28***) (5.02***)
Note. () represents t-value. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
IN = Informativity; EN = Entertainment; IT = Interactivity; IM = Immersion; PI = Product Interest; LI = Live streaming Interest; BD = Buying Desire; IB = Immediate Buying Behavior; WI = Continuous Watching Intention
JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING
123
124 X. LV ET AL.
Second, immersion positively influenced viewers’ inter­
est in tourism products and in watching tourism live
streaming. When viewers immersed themselves in the
tourism live streaming, they tended to become highly
interested in recommended tourism products. Their inter­
est in live-streaming content and streamers was awa­
kened as well. The findings are consistent with Lee et al.
(2018), which is a significant relationship between consu­
mers’ attention and interest. Interestingly, we found that
immersion had a greater impact on viewers’ product
interest than on their interest in live streaming. This find­
ing suggests that tourism live streaming can effectively
prime the audience to follow a consumption model and
thus generate product interest. Sharing product-related
information with viewers and selling products is para­
mount to tourism live streaming. Viewers received key
product information when exposed to tourism live
streaming, which made it easier for them to develop
strong interest in the advertised products.
Third, product interest positively affected buying
desire, further promoting viewers’ immediate buying
behavior. Whereas live streaming interest did not.
Tourism live streaming elicited viewers’ interest in pro­
ducts, directly leading them to possess buying desires,
and further promoting them immediately buy tourism
products. These results align with the prior study based
on the AIDA theory (Lee et al., 2018). By contrast, if
viewers were solely interested in the content of live
streaming and streamers, they were generally not driven
to generate buying desires. One reason for this discre­
pancy may be that viewers perceive live streaming as
similar to variety shows or series; that is, they primarily
enjoy the process of watching the footage. In this case,
viewers would be more concerned with live-streaming
content and streamers themselves rather than featured
tourism products. Another potential explanation is that
the price of tourism products is usually much higher
than other commodities recommended in shopping
live streams, to the point that these items can be
Characteristics
Informativity
.30***
.66***
Entertainment
.38*** Immersion
.51***
.21***
Interactivity
Attention
Figure 3. Structural model with standard path coefficients of AIDMA model
somewhat expensive for most viewers. Therefore, audi­
ence members will rarely generate buying desires if they
are only interested in live-streaming content and
streamers.
Fourth, product interest and live streaming interest
each positively influenced viewers’ continuous watching
intentions. Those who were interested in products
thought the tourism live streaming served as a great
channel to access product information, and wished
that themselves and their relatives and friends could
obtain more knowledge about enterprises’ tourism pro­
ducts and make more informed purchase decisions.
Thus, viewers continued watching tourism live stream­
ing and also tended to recommend their relatives and
friends to continue watching tourism live streaming in
the future. Meanwhile, viewers who are interested in live
streaming considered it as a relaxing and stress-relieving
way to continue watching live streaming during their
leisure time. They not only choose to continue watching
tourism live streaming, but also recommend their friends
and relatives to watch tourism live streaming frequently.
Lastly, some findings of this study’s multi-group analy­
sis conducted invaluable insights. In terms of gender,
promoted by the buying desires, the females were more
prone to engage in immediate buying than the males.
Possible reasoning for the result arose from the females
with strong buying desires holding more favorable atti­
tudes to consumption and they were more likely to
engage in impulse buying, which was in line with the
results of Choi and Park (2017). For the influence of live
streaming interest in continuous watching intention, it
was found that for the females, as live streaming inter­
estincreased, their inclination to continue watching live
streaming and recommend their relatives and friends to
continue watching live streaming that more than the
males. This may result from that the females could obtain
more enjoyment, pleasure and fun by watching tourism
live streams. However, the males may consider that con­
tinuous watching tourism live streaming is a waste of
Immediate
Product interest .59*** Buying desire -.10 Product memory -.02 buying
behavior
.22***
.08
Live streaming Continuous
interest .46*** watching
intention
Interest Desire memory Action

time, which is consistent with past studies (Chen & Lin,
2018). When it comes to age, we found that as the pro­
duct interest increased, the young had stronger buying
desires than the elderly. Furthermore, once viewers’ buy­
ing desires enhanced, they were more likely to immedi­
ately buy tourism products than the elderly. One potential
explanation is that young viewers might obtain more
satisfaction through immediate buying (Chopdar &
Balakrishnan, 2020). Another reason is that compared to
elder viewers, young viewers tend to have lower emo­
tional control and lack of purchase experience, which
leads them to be more likely to make immediate pur­
chases. Regarding the viewing experience of viewers,
those with low watching experience were more likely to
buy immediately once they had strong buying desires
than those with high watching experience.This finding
differs from those of Chang and Chen (2008). One possible
reason is that the price of tourism products is higher than
general merchandise, the viewers who have high watch­
ing experience could think twice more before immediate
buying than those with low watching experience.
Interestingly, in terms of the moderation effects of time
pressure, we found that for the viewers with low time
pressure, as the perception of informativity enhanced,
there are more likely to immerse themselves in live
streaming than those perceiving higher time pressure.
The result may be due to different information processing
under the different levels of time pressure. Time pressure
reduced viewers’ attention span, and while viewers were
in a state of high time pressure, their information proces­
sing was less than those who were under low time pres­
sure. Our finding is coincident with previous results (Lv et
al., 2021). In addition, promoted by their buying desires,
the viewers who perceived high time pressure were prone
to engage in immediate buying behavior than those per­
ceiving low time pressure. The result is in line with those
of Zhao et al. (2019). One potential reason for the results is
that viewers with high time pressure could consider that
the purchase decision-making time left for them is much
shorter. They might be regretful if they do not quickly buy
the products recommended within the limited purchase
time in tourism live streaming.
Theoretical and Managerial contributions
Academia and marketing managers can benefit from the
insight obtained from the research. First, we have iden­
tified three unique characteristics of tourism live stream­
ing, namely information, entertainment, and
interactivity. Moreover, we studied the viewer’s immedi­
ate buying behavior and continuous watching inten­
tions through the three characteristics of the new
media form. This provides a fresh perspective for the
JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 125
quantitative studies of tourism live streaming. Prior stu­
dies on live streaming mostly focused on viewers’ moti­
vation to engage in live streaming (Hilvert-Bruce et al.,
2018), consumers’ perceived value of live streams
(Wongkitrungrueng & Assarut, 2020), characteristics of
streamers (Guo et al., 2022; Heo et al., 2020), the inter­
activity between streamers and consumers (Hou et al.,
2020; Kang et al., 2021). A few studies have paid atten­
tion to the characteristics of shopping live streams or
tourism live streams (Chen & Lin, 2018; Deng et al., 2019;
Hou et al., 2019; Lau, 2020; Xu et al., 2019), whereas, they
have not connected live streaming characteristics and
viewers’ perception or decision-making processes (Sun
et al., 2019). Tourism live streaming represents a new
medium for tourism marketing, and its characteristics
must be taken into account with the decision-making
processes of viewers’ immediate purchases and their
continuous viewing intentions. In this study, we system­
atically explore the features of live streaming and offer a
deeper understanding of how live streaming influences
tourism consumers’ decision-making processes, thus
contributing to the existing literature on live tourism
streams. Managerially, the positive roles of tourism live
streaming’s characteristics on viewers’ immersion point
to the need for enterprises to invest resources in ampli­
fying these three features when designing and planning
productions. In terms of informativity, practitioners
should leverage video and audio features to offer rich,
accurate and detailed information (Sun et al., 2019). As
one example, staff could use high-quality equipment to
improve the clarity of the live streaming content and
enhance the detail and authenticity of the tourism pro­
ducts shown to viewers (Sun et al., 2019;
Wongkitrungrueng & Assarut, 2020; Wongkitrungrueng
et al., 2020). In terms of entertainment, enterprises could
design intriguing product-related activities in live
streams (Wongkitrungrueng & Assarut, 2020). For exam­
ple, streamers could role-play characters related to the
tourism live streaming theme or destinations, or intro­
duce tourism products in the form of sitcoms. In terms of
interactivity, enterprises should add interactive func­
tions to live-streaming platforms and offer rewards
based on viewers’ chat contributions. For instance,
designing interactive lucky draws at different stages of
the live-streaming process.
Second, we offered theoretical insight into viewers’
immediate buying processes by employing the AIDA
model to live streaming research. The effectiveness of
the AIDA model in tourism live streaming was con­
firmed, which provides a more profound and thorough
understanding of viewers’ decision-making processes.
Moreover, in our AIDA model, we expanded earlier
work on consumers’ interest that only considered a
126 X. LV ET AL.
single dimension (usually product interest; Füller &
Bilgram, 2017). Our study further distinguished viewers’
interest in products from their interest in tourism live
streaming and showed that these two forms of interest
elicited distinct behavioral intentions. As such, this study
provides a comprehensive understanding of live
streaming viewers’ interest. Interest in live streams
might also be a critical factor influencing viewers’ beha­
vioral intentions in the live streaming context.
Third, based on a short- and long-term behavioral
perspective, we simultaneously explored two behaviors
of live streaming viewers: Immediate buying behavior
(short-term behavior) and continuous watching inten­
tion (long-term behavioral intention). Studies on live
streaming have mostly pertained to viewers’ purchase
intentions or impulsive purchases (Guo et al., 2022; Hou
et al., 2019; Park & Lin, 2020; Su et al., 2020; Sun et al.,
2019); comparatively few have considered continuous
watching intentions. We framed immediate buying
behavior as a short-term behavior and continuous
watching intention as a long-term behavioral intention
based on the frequency and duration of viewers’ beha­
vior, grounded in Zogaj et al.’s classification of consumer
behavior. Supported by the AIDA model, immersion can
evoke both types of viewers’ interest, and further directly
inspire long-term behavioral intention (continuous
watching intention). And the product-related interest
inspires short-term behavior (immediate buying beha­
vior) through buying desires. This discovery expands
research on viewers’ behavior in the live streaming con­
text. Our findings thus shed light on research avenues
related to viewers’ behavior as new media forms con­
tinue to emerge.
Findings show that practitioners can trigger view­
ers’ continuous watching intentions by increasing live
streams’ media value through streamed content and
streamers themselves. Therefore, focusing on these
elements can help to enhance the audience’s sticki­
ness. For example, enterprises could improve the
quality of livestreaming content by elaborately
designing themes, situations, and interactive links.
They can also provide featured tourism product
recommendations together with livestreaming scenes
to enhance their viewing value. Additionally, enter­
prises should seek to create attractive content that
meets viewers’ expectations (Xu et al., 2019), such as
providing content with hedonic value (e.g., novel and
amusing content) to evoke viewers’ interest in live
streaming, and further compel them to continue
watching and promote them to recommend the rela­
tives and friends to continue watching. In order to
assemble a group of high-quality streamers, organiza­
tions should establish strict recruitment standards.
Additionally, our study contributes unique insights
and enhances the literature on live streaming by exam­
ining the moderating effects of gender, age, watching
experience, and time pressure. We have uncovered indi­
vidual differences related to viewers’ immediate buying
behavior and continuous watching intentions through
multi-group analysis. Specifically, we identified gender
as a key moderating variable that influences the relation­
ship between buying desires and immediate buying
behavior, or the relationship between live streaming
interest and continuous watching intentions. Viewers’
age also plays a moderating role in the effect of product
interest on buying desire, and the effect of buying desire
on immediate buying behavior. Further, the levels of
watching experience moderate the influence of buying
desire on immediate buying behavior. To our knowl­
edge, this is the first live streaming study to look at the
possible moderating effect of time pressure level on
viewers’ decision-making processes. Most prior research
on testing the relationship between time pressure and
consumers’ decision-making processes is relatively nar­
row in scope (Peng et al., 2019). For example, the only
moderating role that has been tested is the effect of
customer perceived value (Sohn & Lee, 2017). This
study deepens and expands the understanding of time
pressure and illustrates how time pressure impacts view­
ers’ decision-making processes when watching tourism
live streaming.
From a marketing perspective, tourism enterprises
could segment viewers to better understand their deci­
sion-making processes in different markets, allowing
them to develop more customized marketing strategies
An example would be considering gender differences in
marketing strategies. In live streams of tourism, females
are both the main consumers and an important source
of traffic. Enterprises should pay close attention to the
female market, and present a product that will excite
their purchasing desires (Choi & Park, 2017), encoura­
ging them to make an immediate purchase.
Furthermore, enterprises need to improve live streams’
content and streamers to further encourage female
viewers to continue watching, thus accumulating traffic.
Furthermore, the results showed that viewers’ age was
also a factor. The young viewers may be the main target
market of tourism live streaming selling products.
Practitioners need to pay more attention to the young
viewers and incite their immediate buying behavior. In
addition, practitioners should distinguish viewers with
different levels of viewing experience. Tourism products
could be specifically marketed or sold to viewers with
low watching experience, inciting immediate purchase
desires. Additionally, tourism enterprises should identify
high-pressure viewers, since they may be the primary

consumers of tourism live streaming. Enterprises could
design a high time pressure environment which viewers
would be compelled to act immediately and buy. During
tourism live streaming, companies could offer limited
quantities of products within a limited timeframe and
promote special prices, coupons, and weekly holiday
sales during tourism live streaming. As a result of these
strategies, viewers may purchase products immediately
once their purchasing desires are generated.
Limitations and future research
This study has several limitations that should be addressed
in future research. First, although we found that viewers
expressed continuous watching intentions toward tourism
live streaming, our study involved a single point in time
and used cross-sectional data to test the research model.
The questions of whether continuous watching intention
declines over time, and whether viewers’ interest in tourism
live streaming might wane over time remain unanswered.
Therefore, scholars could adopt longitudinal analyses to
address these topics and validate our conclusions.
Second, we chose Trip.com Group as the live-streaming
platform given its popularity in China. However, Trip.com
Group may differ from other platforms in its situational
setting, content design, and streamers’ style. To verify the
robustness of our conclusions, subsequent studies should
explore the decision-making processes of viewers who
have watched tourism live streaming on other platforms.
Third, we explored the characteristics of tourism live
streaming and its impact on viewers’ immediate buying
behavior and continuous watching intentions; we did not
compare live streaming with other media forms, such as
traditional tourism advertisements. In the future, a com­
parative study could be conducted including live streaming
and other media modes.
Notes
1. Trip.com is a renowned enterprise offering online travel
services in China.
2. Hereafter all referred to as Trip.com live streaming.
3. The data is from 2020 Trip.com Group Boss Live Stream
Big Data Report released by Trip.com Group Institute.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Funding
This work was supported by Fundamental research Funds for
the central universities of China [JBK2202022].
JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 127
ORCID
Xingyang Lv http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5025-7769
Yiran Su http://orcid.org/0000-0002-9650-2798
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 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 131

Appendices

Table A1. A summary of major measurement items.

Constructs Items Measurement items Source
Informativity IN1 Tourism live streaming is informative to me. Gao and Bai (2014) and Jeon
(IN) IN2 It is convenient to access products or services information by watching tourism live streaming et al. (2018)
IN3 Tourism live streaming provides comprehensive products or services information for me.
IN4 Tourism live streaming provides accurate products or services information for me.
IN5 Tourism live streaming provides up-to-date products or services information for me.
Entertainment EN1 I feel that tourism live streaming is fun to watch. Gao and Bai (2014) and Chen
(EN) EN2 I feel that watching the tourism live-streaming relaxes me. and Lin (2018)
EN3 I feel that watching tourism live streaming is entertaining.
EN4 I feel that the tourism live streaming is imaginative.
EN5 I feel that the situation set by tourism live streaming is flashy.
Interactivity IT1 During watching tourism live streaming, the danmaku, a real-time interactive way, made me feel that Hou et al. (2019)
(IT) the streamers and viewers wanted to listen to me.
IT2 The tourism live streaming offered opportunities for real-time interaction between me and the
streamers and other viewers through the function of danmaku.
IT3 The tourism live streaming facilitated two-way communication between me and the streamers and
other viewers.
IT4 During watching tourism live streaming, the real-time interaction between me and the streamers and
other viewers was effective.
Immersion IM1 I am deeply engrossed in the tourism live streaming. Yim et al. (2017)
(IM) IM2 I am absorbed in watching the tourism live streaming.
IM3 When watching tourism live streaming, my attention is focused.
Product PI1 I am interested in the products recommended during tourism live streaming. Cheah et al. (2019)
Interest PI2 I like the products recommended during tourism live streaming.
(PI) PI3 The products recommended during tourism live streaming give me a good impression.
Live- LI1 I am interested in the content and streamers of tourism live streaming. Cheah et al. (2019)
streaming LI2 I like the content and streamers of tourism live streaming.
Interest LI3 The content and streamers of tourism live streaming give me a good impression.
(LI)
Buying Desire BD1 I think I need the tourism products recommended by tourism live streaming. Wei and Lu (2013)
(BD) BD2 I want to have the tourism products recommended by tourism live streaming.
BD3 I hope I can get the tourism products recommended by tourism live streaming.
Product PM1 I think the products recommended by the tourism live streaming are impressive. Wei and Lu (2013)
Memory PM2 I can remember which products were recommended by the tourism live streaming.
(PM) PM3 I can recall some details of the tourism products that had been recommended by the tourism live
streaming, such as product prices, product discounts, etc.
Immediate IB1 I will quickly click on the product link that appears in the tourism live streaming room and buy the A. J. Kim and Johnson (2016)
Buying tourism products right away.
Behavior IB2 When watching tourism live streaming, I will buy the tourism products recommended by live
(BI) streaming immediately.
Continuous WI1 I intend to continue watching tourism live streaming in the future. Hou et al. (2019) and
Watching WI2 I will always try to watch tourism live streaming in my daily life. Xu and Gursoy (2020)
Intention WI3 I plan to continue to watch tourism live streaming frequently.
(WI) WI4 I would recommend my friends and relatives to continue watching tourism live streaming in the
future.
WI5 I would encourage my friends and relatives to watch tourism live streaming frequently.
Time Pressure TP1 I must hurry if I am to buy tourism products recommended by tourism live streaming. Lin and Chen (2013)
(TP) TP2 I feel pressured to buy tourism products recommended by tourism live streaming quickly.
TP3 I do not have enough time to buy tourism products recommended by tourism live streaming.
132 X. LV ET AL.

Table B1. Summaries of the results of multi-group analysis. Results of Structural Equation Modeling Analysis: Gender
Model Limited condition χ2 df χ2/df Δχ2/df RMSEA CFI TLI IFI
Ideal value - - - <3 - <0.08 >0.90 >0.90 >0.90
Overall model 825.04 482 1.71 - 0.04 0.97 0.97 0.97
Unconstrained model Same construct 1359.59 964 1.41 - 0.03 0.97 0.96 0.97
Constrained model I Equal construct and measurement weights 1384.06 988 1.40 24.47/24 0.03 0.97 0.96 0.97
P = 0.435
Constrained model II Equal construct, measurement weights 1426.99 998 1.43 42.93/10 0.03 0.96 0.96 0.96
and structural weights P < 0.001

Pairwise parameter comparisons: Gender

Gender-Male Gender-Female Group
differences Moderating
Path Coefficient t-Value Coefficient t-Value p value hypothesis results
IN→IM 0.26 3.39*** 0.32 4.73*** 0.507 Unsupported
EN→IM 0.33 3.98*** 0.42 6.29*** 0.447 Unsupported
IT→IM 0.24 3.01** 0.19 2.41* 0.902 Unsupported
IM→PI 0.62 8.55*** 0.67 10.37*** 0.254 Unsupported
IM→LI 0.36 4.58*** 0.65 8.64*** 0.070 Unsupported
PI→BD 0.55 7.40*** 0.60 8.65*** 0.490 Unsupported
LI→BD 0.09 1.25 0.10 1.43 0.873 Unsupported
BD→IB 0.46 5.49*** 0.74 11.37*** 0.000 Supported
PI→WI 0.29 3.65*** 0.13 1.98* 0.089 Unsupported
LI→WI 0.27 3.29** 0.65 7.76*** 0.000 Supported
*p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
IN = Informativity; EN = Entertainment; IT = Interactivity; IM = Immersion; PI = Product Interest; LI = Live-streaming Interest; BD = Buying Desire;
IB = Immediate Buying Behavior; WI = Continuous Watching Intention

Results of Structural Equation Modeling Analysis: Age

χ2/
2
Model Limited condition χ df df Δχ2/df RMSEA CFI TLI IFI
Ideal value - - - <3 - <0.08 >0.90 >0.90 >0.90
Overall model 825.04 482 1.71 - 0.04 0.97 0.97 0.97
Unconstrained model Same construct 1442.34 964 1.50 - 0.03 0.96 0.95 0.96
Constrained model I Equal construct and 1469.39 988 1.49 27.05/24 0.03 0.96 0.95 0.96
measurement weights P = 0.302
Constrained model II Equal construct, measurement weights and 1504.39 998 1.51 35.00/10 0.04 0.95 0.95 0.96
structural weights P < 0.001

Pairwise parameter comparisons: Age

Age (< 41 years old) Age (≥ 41 years old) Group
differences Moderating
Path Coefficient t-Value Coefficient t-Value p value hypothesis results
IN→IM 0.29 4.06*** 0.32 4.30*** 0.432 Unsupported
EN→IM 0.32 4.66*** 0.47 5.61*** 0.151 Unsupported
IT→IM 0.23 3.03** 0.12 1.38 0.337 Unsupported
IM→PI 0.61 8.88*** 0.64 8.72*** 0.894 Unsupported
IM→LI 0.47 6.17*** 0.59 7.59*** 0.239 Unsupported
PI→BD 0.68 9.57*** 0.38 4.55*** 0.027 Supported
LI→BD 0.11 1.62 0.16 1.87 0.567 Unsupported
BD→IB 0.84 10.72*** 0.35 3.93*** 0.002 Supported
PI→WI 0.26 3.83*** 0.18 2.27* 0.281 Unsupported
LI→WI 0.50 6.10*** 0.45 5.31*** 0.233 Unsupported
Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
IN = Informativity; EN = Entertainment; IT = Interactivity; IM = Immersion; PI = Product Interest; LI = Live-streaming Interest; BD = Buying Desire; IB = Immediate
Buying Behavior; WI = Continuous Watching Intention
 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 133

Results of Structural Equation Modeling Analysis: Watching experience

Model Limited condition χ2 df χ2/df Δχ2/df RMSEA CFI TLI IFI
Ideal value - - - <3 - <0.08 >0.90 >0.90 >0.90
Overall model 825.04 482 1.71 - 0.04 0.97 0.97 0.97
Unconstrained model Same construct 1348.36 964 1.40 - 0.03 0.97 0.96 0.97
Constrained model I Equal construct and measurement weights 1371.42 988 1.39 23.06/24 0.03 0.97 0.96 0.97
P = 0.516
Constrained model II Equal construct, measurement weights 1410.52 998 1.41 39.10/10 0.03 0.96 0.96 0.96
and structural weights P < 0.001

Pairwise parameter comparisons: Watching experience

Watching experience-Low Watching experience-High Group
differences Moderating
Path Coefficient t-Value Coefficient t-Value p value hypothesis results

IN→IM 0.36 4.41*** 0.28 4.19*** 0.746 Unsupported

EN→IM 0.30 3.88*** 0.45 6.32*** 0.148 Unsupported
IT→IM 0.21 2.56* 0.19 2.54* 0.828 Unsupported
IM→PI 0.68 9.62*** 0.64 9.69*** 0.453 Unsupported
IM→LI 0.56 7.13*** 0.48 6.50*** 0.537 Unsupported
PI→BD 0.60 7.89*** 0.56 8.25*** 0.569 Unsupported
LI→BD 0.10 1.32 0.08 1.12 0.757 Unsupported
BD→IB 0.76 10.08*** 0.42 6.13*** 0.006 Supported
PI→WI 0.14 1.84 0.30 4.47*** 0.060 Unsupported
LI→WI 0.60 6.80*** 0.38 5.14*** 0.078 Unsupported
Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.
IN = Informativity; EN = Entertainment; IT = Interactivity; IM = Immersion; PI = Product Interest; LI = Live-streaming Interest; BD = Buying Desire; IB = Immediate
Buying Behavior; WI = Continuous Watching Intention

Results of Structural Equation Modeling Analysis: Time pressure

Model Limited condition χ2 df χ2/df Δχ2/df RMSEA CFI TLI IFI
Ideal value - - - <3 - <0.08 >0.90 >0.90 >0.90
Overall model 825.04 482 1.71 - 0.04 0.97 0.97 0.97
Unconstrained model Same construct 1446.93 964 1.50 - 0.03 0.96 0.95 0.96
Constrained model I Equal construct and measurement weights 1461.54 988 1.48 14.61/24 0.03 0.96 0.95 0.96
P = 0.932
Constrained model II Equal construct, measurement weights and 1505.36 998 1.51 43.82/10 0.03 0.95 0.95 0.95
structural weights P < 0.001

Pairwise parameter comparisons: Time pressure

Time pressure -Low Time pressure -High Group
differences Moderating
Path Coefficient t-Value Coefficient t-Value p value hypothesis results
IN→IM 0.36 4.84*** 0.26 3.59*** 0.028 Supported
EN→IM 0.41 5.42*** 0.30 4.13*** 0.091 Unsupported
IT→IM 0.19 2.54* 0.21 2.56* 0.840 Unsupported
IM→PI 0.67 8.64*** 0.54 7.91*** 0.981 Unsupported
IM→LI 0.59 7.40*** 0.42 5.39*** 0.114 Unsupported
PI→BD 0.35 3.93*** 0.63 8.99*** 0.117 Unsupported
LI→BD 0.11 1.26 0.13 1.89 0.856 Unsupported
BD→IB 0.44 4.02*** 0.71 9.93*** 0.003 Supported
PI→WI 0.12 1.53 0.26 3.91*** 0.148 Unsupported
LI→WI 0.55 6.28*** 0.43 5.02*** 0.890 Unsupported
Note. *p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001
IN = Informativity; EN = Entertainment; IT = Interactivity; IM = Immersion; PI = Product Interest; LI = Live-streaming Interest; BD = Buying Desire;
IB = Immediate Buying Behavior; WI = Continuous Watching Intention
134 X. LV ET AL.

Figure C1. Tourism live streams of Ttip.com was presented from the mobile terminals.
 JOURNAL OF TRAVEL & TOURISM MARKETING 135

Figure C1. (Continued).

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