The role of travel influencers in volunteer tourism: an application of the cognitive response theory

Drawing on the Cognitive Response Theory (CRT), this research aimed to examine how travel influencers' (TI) content about volunteer tourism affect their followers' intention to participate in volunteer tourism (VT). The informativeness of volunteer tourism activities' (VTA) in TIs' content was evaluated as external information according to the components of the CRT in terms of the intention to participate in volunteer tourism. According to the findings, while VTAs' informativeness in TIs' content positively affects ascribed responsibility, information quality and curiosity, all of the variables were found to have positively affected positive emotion. In addition, there is a serial mediation relationship among all of the research variables.