Influences of Expertise, Credibility, and Level of Involvement to Tourist Intention

Abstract

Tourism is one of five sectors that are currently the main priority development for Indonesia; besides can reduce unemployment, foreign income from this sector also worhty. Beside Bali island, Special Region of Yogyakarta is known as a favorite tourist destination in Indonesia. Yogyakarta has many natural attractions and cultural tourism. However, foreign tourist visits to Yogyakarta are still far below Bali or other areas. On the other hand, there has been a rapid development of information and communication technology (ICT), especially in the massive use of electronic social media. If the first interest to visit a tourist destination influenced information from magazines, newspapers, tabloids, or word of mouth, currently searching for tourist information is suspected to have been done through the information technology products. The purpose of this study is to test the hypothesis whether information resource expertise variable in e WOM (e Word of Mouth) that used as a reference by tourists, credibility of eWOM variable, level of tourist involvement on e WOM variable positive and significant influence on tourist intention to visit certain tourist destinations in Yogyakarta. The research used survey research design using questionnaire given to a number of students at UKDW with purposive sampling technique. By using multiple regression analysis, result shows that the expertise variable in e WOM and credibility variable has no positive and significant influence on tourist intention variable; while level of involvement variable have positive and significant influence on tourist intention variable.