A Study on the Audience Psychological Effects of “Cloud Tourism” Based on Webcast: A New Mechanism for Sustainable Development in the Tourism

Abstract

In recent years, ”cloud tourism” has developed rapidly and has gained a wide audience, gradually becoming a new operation form of sustainable development in tourism. However, research on the audience perception, psychological needs, and behavior in this area is still in its infancy. Taking the tourism webcast on the Chinese Weibo platform as an example, this paper constructs a cognitive-emotional model of Chinese tourists’ “cloud tourism” and explores the impact mechanism of “cloud tourism” on audience behavioral willingness by drawing on the “cognitive-emotional” theory combined with text analysis and grounded theory. The findings suggest that “cloud tourism” can satisfy the audience’s cognitive needs to a certain extent, but the experiential nature of tourism is far from sufficient, and it is difficult to realize the essence of tourism. In the future, “cloud tourism” still needs to continuously exert positive effects, becoming a visual presentation of traditional tourism and a novel operation form of sustainable development.