A Para-Social Perspective: The Influence of Idol Worship on Fans’ Tourism Decision-Making

Abstract

Fans’ relationships with celebrities are termed “para-social.” Such one-way relationships with celebrities, often based on social media, might have a special impact on people’s behavior, including travel activities. Scholars have not yet explored the decision-making and behavior of pop culture tourists from the perspective of para-social relationships. In this study, informed by self-construal theory, in-depth interview and questionnaire-based survey were used to explore the impact of different self-construal on fans’ perceptions of the nature of their “fan-celebrity” para-social relationship and their pop culture tourism decision-making. Results indicate that fans whose self-construal is “independent” prefer idols’ habitual residential environment and placed-mediated experiences, while “interdependent” fans prefer interactive experiences, are celebrity oriented, and go where their favorite celebrity was gone.