Dealing with Travel Influencers: Opportunity or Threat?

This work offers a firm perspective on the travel influencer (TI) literature by investigating how employees evaluate TI threat-framed requests. Drawing on three experimental studies with employees in the hotel industry, we provide insights into how they process and respond to different forms of TI requests. Study 1 shows that employees are less likely to accept the TI’s request for collaboration when this request is framed as a threat (vs. an opportunity) but are more likely to experience a negative emotional state from dealing with this request. Study 2 replicates these effects in a high-knowledge decision-making context. Study 3 shows that TIs’ perceived power impacts employees’ willingness to accept the TI’s request for collaboration and moderates how employees experience different request framings in their affective evaluations. Our findings contribute to the developing TI literature and provide insights on how TIs should adapt their communication style to initiate partnerships with hotels.