Travel Influencers vs. Travel Agencies: The Impact of Instagram Travel Content on Young Adults' Perceived Source Credibility, Travel Planning Behaviors and Destination Choices. A quantitative research into the differences between sponsored content made by travel influencers, non-sponsored content made by travel influencers and content made by travel agencies on Instagram.

The general aim of this study was to increase one’s understanding of how Instagram travel content influences young adults’ perceived source credibility, travel planning behaviors and destination choices. By conducting an online between-subjects experimental survey with four conditions, the researcher aspired to examine the differences between the following types of Instagram content: (1) sponsored Instagram content made by travel influencers, (2) non-sponsored Instagram content made by travel influencers, (3) Instagram content made by travel agencies, and (4) anonymous Instagram travel content. Based on previous research, it was hypothesized that young adults between the age of 18 and 24 perceive Instagram content made by travel influencers as more credible than Instagram content made by travel agencies. Besides, young adults from this age group were expected to be more likely to use Instagram content made by travel influencers than Instagram content made by travel agencies in their travel planning behaviors and destination choices. While the former relationship was assumed to be moderated by young adults’ ability to recognize advertisements, the latter relationship was assumed to be mediated by young adults’ perceived source credibility. Multiple statistical analyses in IBM SPSS, including Hayes’ PROCESS Macro, were conducted to test the considered relationships. According to the results of the statistical analyses, the researcher could conclude that actually the opposite is true. It appeared that young adults between the age of 18 and 24 perceive Instagram content made by travel influencers as less credible than Instagram content made by travel agencies. However, this is only the case when the former type of content contains sponsored elements (=moderating effect). Furthermore, it turned out that young adults do not prefer one type of Instagram travel content over another when it comes to using it in their travel planning behaviors and destination choices. This is because perceived source credibility only mediates young adults’ decisions to use Instagram content made by travel agencies in their travel planning behaviors. Still, the results of this study contribute to the larger theoretical framework of understanding the implications of Instagram travel content. While young adults can use the findings of this research to learn more about the persuasive elements of travel (influencer) marketing, travel influencers and travel agencies can use the findings of this research to learn more about their target audiences’ preferences. To further explore advertising skepticism among young adults, future researchers are advised to also investigate the impact of partiality disclosure.