Exam (elaborations) Abstract. Tourism is considered one important sect

Model in Marketing Communication Through Social MediaAbstract. Tourism is considered one important sector of Indonesia’s development, and the government has launched ‘Five Super Priority Tourism Destinations’ to enhance the industry; however, the pandemic has decreased the number of foreign tourists, and the limitation to travel abroad actually creates an opportunity to increase domestic tourist visits to these destinations. As social media nowadays has become an important channel in marketing communication in this sector due to its visual representation, this research aims to investigate the persuasion process through social media content to give the intention to travel to the destinations using Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) framework. Data was collected through a survey of 365 respondents and was analyzed using Structural Equation Modelling Partial Least Square (SEM PLS). The results give insights into how the persuasion process changes consumer behaviour through social media to provide suggestions for marketing strategies using social media to promote tourism destinations. Keywords: Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) · social media content · perceived destination image · intention to travel 1 Introduction In 2017, Indonesia was ranked 20th as the world’s largest tourism industry and 9th as the fastest-growing tourism sector worldwide [1, 2]. With this potential, in 2018, Indonesian President Joko Widodo placed tourism as one of the three leading sectors for development. To support the Tourism Sector Development Strategy and Policy, the government has launched the ‘Super priority Tourism Destinations’ program [3]. These five destinations aim to promote tourist attractions and develop a creative economic ecosystem [4]. They are Lake Toba, Borobudur Temple, Mandalika, Labuan Bajo, and Likupang. However, along with the pandemic, tourism is affected by the travel restriction policy, with the number of foreign tourist arrivals to Indonesia in January 2021 decreasing by 89.05% compared to January 2020 due to the pandemic and travel bans [5], and it is suggested to rely on domestic tourists to boost Indonesia’s tourism industry. Tourism is an intangible product containing various types of risks [6], including financial, psychological, and social views of other people [7]. Therefore, decisions related to © The Author(s) 2023 W. R. Murhadi et al. (Eds.): INSYMA 2022, AEBMR 223, pp. 944–954, 2023. Elaboration Likelihood Model in Marketing Communication 945 traveling are high-involvement decisions [8]. The perceived destination image is one of the most important predictors in the decision-making process and plays an essential role in destination selection [9]. Most tourists rely on visual cues as an important source of information in tourism [10] and travel photography as an indirect and virtual experience for travellers to build narratives about their trip experiences [7] and other travellers to determine whether a destination is worth visiting [11] to assist them in making travel decisions. Nowadays, many people take pictures with their mobile phones and share them via social media [12]; social media has become an essential tourism component. By participatory culture, sharing consumption experiences on social media, consumers and other stakeholders contribute to creating the destination image as a product of stakeholder discussion on social media platforms [7, 13]. As a result, social media has permeated all aspects of tourism, resulting in significant changes in how tourists plan, consume, evaluate, and advertise their experiences [14]. Moreover, social media has a pronounced effect on overall travel sentiment, and it was found to have a significant mediating role in reducing travel worries [15]. According to a survey report, social media penetration in Indonesia is high, more than 86% [16]; social media has become one important communication medium for Indonesia’s domestic tourism. The study aims to investigate how individuals process visual content and then measure the impact of social media content on behaviour, i.e., tourists’ intentions to travel to a specific destination. There is numerous research on social media marketing in tourism; however, there is a scarcity of studies assessing the influence of visual signals on consumers’ learning about destinations and their decisions to visit [17]. Thus, this research tries to address the gap by investigating both the persuasion routes of the ELM framework on visual content in social media for domestic tourism. Petty and Cacioppo conceptualized the Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM) in 1983, which can be related to other theories about attitude change [18]. It is found to be effective in predicting individual attitudes toward marketing communications by advertisers and marketing experts is [19, 20]. ELM framework proposed two different routes in the persuasion process to behaviour change, namely the central and peripheral routes [20, 21]. The central route is the route that is generally chosen with high involvement as a result of cognitive processing [22]; it is message-related and argument-oriented [23]. Tourism considers many important factors, ranging from destination choices to attractions to visit at the destination [24]; hence, it commonly takes the central route after a person’s careful consideration of the information, a high level of audience involvement, analytical processing, and elaboration by evaluating the quality of content or message arguments, [25] before leaving for a trip. The second route is the peripheral route which is informed by peripheral factors such as source attractiveness, perceived credibility, or message repetition [26, 27] or consensus and aesthetics [25]; it is process cue oriented [23]. Attitude change occurs through peripheral pathways because the problem or attitude object is associated with positive or negative cues in a persuasive context, such as previous users, previous related personal experiences, and credibility or because the person makes simple conclusions [23]. 946 U. A. Octafiola and E. Yuliati Furthermore, in the ELM theory, decisions are related to variations in a person’s level of elaboration, which ranges from low to high [22]. His motivation determines a person’s place on the elaboration continuum and ability to process information, and one can move from one route to another or experience different elaborations by simple cues such as client attractiveness at the low end and all available information analyzed to develop a reasoned judgment at the high end [22]. So, it is important to understand information processing in central and peripheral routes to identify the diversity of consumer behaviour [28]. ELM suggests that the most effective messages depend on consumers’ persuasion route. Consumers’ direction determines which aspects of marketing communications will succeed and which will be ignored [19]. Therefore, it is significant to examine the differences in the process of persuasion to consumers on social media content through two routes of persuasion of ELM framework to contribute to the planning of marketing differentiation strategies by customer segment using social media as interaction and communication, especially in tourism. Argument quality is one of the most important aspects of persuasion. It allows the audience to evaluate the usefulness and relevance of information embedded in the message [23] and determines attitude change [29]. Because of the high involvement, tourists search for visual information from various sources in reviews, images, and videos of potential tourist destinations [8], as visual media plays a crucial role in influencing travellers’ desire to take a specific trip [30]. The research [8, 20, 30] show that when more high-quality information is available, audiences are more likely to form a positive image of a destination, which influences travel intentions. Thus, this study proposed that: H1. Argument quality (AQ) of visual content in social media has a positive and significant effect on the perceived destination image (PDI) of super priority destinations. As in the previous discussion, one of the abilities to elaborate is motivation; and this is influenced by factors such as involvement, personal relevance, individual needs, and arousal levels [19]. The concept of audience involvement tries to understand the viewing experience of an active audience in a way that is more experience-oriented entertainment related to instant responses to media content in terms of ongoing feelings and emotions [31]. Based on the discussion above, the communication of social media visual content with higher argument quality leads to greater audience involvement. As a result, the following hypothesis is proposed: H1a. Argument quality (AQ) of visual content in social media has a positive and significant effect on audience involvement (AI). When the audience finds the content of the message interesting and relevant, they are more motivated to process it, resulting in higher levels of cognitive engagement and more predictable individual behaviour [20]. Moreover, it is mentioned that repeated viewing of tourism advertisements, films, or videos featuring a destination can improve the perceived image of a destination among its audience. Therefore, audience involvement can enhance tourism experience, tourism product marketing, and destination promotion [32] and stimulate audience travel intentions [33]; thus, the hypothesis proposed is H2. Audience involvement (AI) has a positive and significant effect on perceived destination image (PDI) of super priority destinations.