Influence of film destination placement on travel intention: mediating effect of involvement and place attachment

Purpose This study aims to examine the public’s acceptance of film-induced tourism and develops the relationship among placement marketing, involvement, place attachment and travel intention. The film Your Love Song shot in the Hualien and Taitung regions in Taiwan was selected as the case study. Design/methodology/approach An online sample survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire, and statistical tests and overall structural equation modeling analysis using the SPSS and AMOS statistical software packages, respectively, were performed. Findings This study results demonstrate that destination placement marketing has a significant positive effect on the level of destination involvement, place attachment and travel intention of viewers. Moreover, the level of involvement has some intermediary effect on the interrelationship between placement marketing and travel intention. Hence, this study suggests that relevant government agencies and tourism operators should promote local tourism through films and television shows and attract more tourists by retaining the original shooting scenes. Originality/value While previous studies have only analyzed two or three of the four concepts of film-induced tourism, placement marketing, travel intention, involvement and place attachment, this study completely integrates these four concepts and proves the correlation between them.