How problematic travel influencer-generated content triggers audience reactance through negative emotions

Most tourism research on social media content focuses on its positive impacts but neglects its potential dilemmas. Grounded in the cognitive-affective-conative framework, this study explores how the problematic content generated by travel influencers influences tourists’ negative emotions and subsequently their behavioural intentions. This research comprises two studies. Study 1 identified five dimensions of problematic content through semi-structured interviews, including commercialisation, exaggeration, homogenisation, staged travel, and ostentation. Study 2 investigated the impacts of these five dimensions on tourists’ perceived irritation and negative affect, which in turn shape their reactance tendency to the content and the travel influencer. The results indicated that these five dimensions significantly affect perceived irritation and negative affect, and both perceived irritation and negative affect have a significant influence on reactance tendency to the content and the travel influencer. This study contributes to research on travel influencers by shedding light on the negative aspects of generated content.