Livestreaming in tourism: What drives tourism live streamers to share their travel experiences?

TLDR

This study is among the first to provide empirical insights into the motivations of tourism live streamers sharing travel experiences. The authors aim to explore tourism live streamers’ motivations for sharing travel experiences using grounded theory. They conducted 22 semi‑structured interviews selected via purposive and snowball sampling and analyzed the data through grounded theory. Five motivations were identified—information sharing, entertainment, self‑presentation, monetary incentives, and socialization—with information sharing and entertainment deemed most important, and monetary incentives emerging as a novel driver for tourism live streamers compared to other social media users.

Abstract

Purpose This study aims to explore tourism live streamers’ motivations of sharing their travel experiences based on the grounded theory. Design/methodology/approach The use of purposive and snowball sampling methods was used to conduct 22 in-depth semi-structured interviews. The manuscript was analyzed based on the grounded theory. Findings This study identifies five tourism live streamers’ motivations of sharing their travel experience, including information sharing, entertainment, self-presentation, monetary incentives and socialization. Information sharing and entertainment are identified as the most important motivations of travel livestreaming (TLS) among the motivations. Monetary incentive is identified as a new motivation for tourism live streamers compared to other social media users. Research limitations/implications This study provides valuable suggestions for livestreaming platforms and tourism product providers to attract more tourism live streamers and better serve them. Originality/value To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is one of the first studies to offer empirical findings and discussions on tourism live streamers’ motivations of sharing their travel experiences.