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

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.