Who can change our minds?: Key factors of online travel communities’ influence on travel intention

User-generated reviews are becoming important sources of information on travel. In literature, the importance of user-generated content when making travel decisions was mostly focused on the message or the person conveying it. The actual platform on which the review was posted has become prominent only recently. Though much has been researched, there is still a gap in the literature on what factors of these communities contribute to higher travel intention. In this study, an extended model of Theory of planned behaviour was used to understand these factors and fill in the gap. Predictors of behaviour such as user experience of the platforms, travel involvement and eWOM scepticism as well as source credibility were chosen to best research the problem. To answer the research question, an experimental study has to be carried out. First, to test travel intention, the island Tenerife was chosen as a destination, based on Eurostat statistics. Next, a pre-test was completed to determine the message and picture of the review about Tenerife. Lastly, an experiment was carried out using travel platforms Instagram, TripAdvisor and Google Maps as independent variables. The survey was disseminated amongst major Europeans and people living in Europe. 196 responses were gathered and analyzed using SPSS. It was shown that source credibility is significantly different on each platform. It also influences travel intention, while user experience turned out to be influential of perceived credibility. Interestingly, eWOM scepticism had no mediation effect on travel intention. Lastly, travel involvement showed no moderation effect on source credibility. The findings also show the highest eWOM scepticism on Instagram and the highest credibility on Google Maps. Furthermore, though not significantly different, user experience did differ amongst platforms, emphasizing the importance of easy user experience and good design. The implications of the study contribute to professionals in tourism and marketing to plan their campaigns and prepare highly targeted promotions of the services using adequate platforms. Moreover, a discussion on the differences amongst the platforms and their benefits are also explained. These implications could be beneficial for the platforms to adapt to the public and make their content more credible.