Digital Content Marketing in Tourism: Factors influencing the intention to travel

Amidst the constant changes in marketing for developing strategies that reach a diverse consumer audience, Digital Content Marketing [DCM] emerges in the market and academic literature as an innovative technique for the diffusion of goods and services. This study analyzed how DCM can impact loyalty and the decision to travel to a tourism destination using Advertising Value and Brand Loyalty theories. Such theories have already been used in researches on DCM. In this study, we tried to adapt them, having the dissemination of tourism destinations as object. An exploratory-descriptive, quantitative research was carried out, with 102 respondents, in three stages. In each of them, text and images were presented with DCM characteristics, containing informative and entertainment aspects. From the Structural Equation Modeling, it was noticed that <informational value> and <entertainment value> characteristics are able to influence loyalty to the destination brand and to the website where its content is published, generating purchase/travel intention. It is expected that these findings can serve as a starting point for further research on DCM in tourism, as well as influence managers in content production to promote destinations.