Understanding Tourist Psychology in Travel Livestreaming: The Lens From Flow and Inspiration

ABSTRACT The rise of livestreaming as a promotional tool has increasingly attracted scholars to focus on the impact of livestreaming on tourism destination marketing and tourists' psychology, including perception. This study examines the effect of informativeness and interactivity on tourist flow, inspiration, and travel intention in travel livestreaming. Through 344 valid survey‐based data, this study empirically found that informativeness has a slightly stronger influence on flow and inspiration than interactivity. Compared to interactivity, informativeness has a stronger effect on travel intention. This study also found that flow and inspiration play positive mediation roles in travel livestreaming. This study contributes to developing inspiration theory and Media Richness theory, confirming that these theories are appropriate for understanding the underlying consumer behavior of livestreaming. Furthermore, this study also provides empirical evidence for managers to better understand how inspiration and flow connect livestreaming with visitor behavior.