Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Tourism Management
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tourman

From interaction to relationship: Rethinking parasocial phenomena in

travel live streaming
Zhiming Deng a, b, *, Pierre Benckendorff a, Jie Wang a
a
Business School, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, 4072, Australia
b
School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, 17, Science Museum Road, East Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Travel live streaming (TLS) has become prolific on many social media platforms, yet the topic has received
Travel live streaming (TLS) limited academic attention. This paper uses an affordance lens to explore travel live streamers and viewers
Affordance parasocial interactions (PSI) and relationships (PSR). Using a more-than-human netnography method, 42 travel
Parasocial interaction
live streams, 36,800 real-time comments, and 36 interviews from travel live streamers were collected through
Parasocial relationship
Information and communication technology
three phases (pre, during and post live streaming). The findings show that TLS affordances provide opportunities
(ICT) to foster PSI through psychological, social, and technological dimensions, and thus develop parasocial ac­
quaintances and conflicts. This study contributes to parasocial investigation and affordance literature by illus­
trating the relationship between technology affordance and participants’ behaviours in the TLS. It also uses a
novel methodological approach known as key frame analysis to capture and analyse live streamed video footage.
Practical implications are discussed for live streamers, destinations, and platforms.

1. Introduction TLS is a multi-dimensional technology because of its mode, content,

In the ongoing quest for online communication and relationship
building, information and communication technology (ICT) is continu­
ally creating new forms on social media for tourist interaction (Gössling,
2021). Developments such as live streaming are quickly embraced by
the tourism industry and have led to new forms of online interaction
(Xie, Yu, Huang, & Zhang, 2022). Travel Live streaming (TLS) allows
travel live streamers to document their touristic activities and interact
with viewers in real time (Deng, Benckendorff, & Wang, 2021). The
technology has been integrated into major social media platforms (e.g.,
Twitch, TikTok), and recently adopted by tourism destinations (e.g., Live
from AUS Campaign). For example, in 2020 Tourism New Zealand
collaborated with travel influencers to dream about and plan their New
Zealand vacation. In 2021, the London Natural History Museum debuted
a live stream tour on the Fliggy platform. In China, the number of TLS
users has increased by an average of 101.4% since April 2020. This
patronage has generated over 1.5 billion users consuming travel-related
products through TLS, generating over 24 billion Yuan in revenue for the
destinations and organisations involved (Mafengwo, 2020). Despite the
importance of TLS in the tourism industry, TLS is emerging as a critical
but poorly researched topic of interest.
and depth of interaction (Deng et al., 2021). In the TLS environment,
interaction occurs when viewers engage with streamers by chatting,
liking, transmitting virtual gifts, or co-producing the TLS by directing
streamers’ actions. Travel live streamers can verbally or behaviourally
respond to viewers by acknowledging their presence, paying attention to
their demands and feelings in real-time. This highly interactive format
underpins parasocial interaction (PSI) signals by enhancing the intimacy
between streamers and viewers. When PSI signals last over time, a
parasocial relationship (PSR) can develop between streamers and
viewers. The broader live streaming literature has argued that live
streaming has changed the nature of interactions in the digital sphere
(McLaughlin & Wohn, 2021). Specifically, live streamer identification
(Hu, Zhang, & Wang, 2017), emotional engagement (de Wit, van der
Kraan, & Theeuwes, 2020), and community affiliation (Orme, 2021) can
facilitate PSI and PSR between streamers and viewers. Mirroring de­
velopments in social media, this has shifted traditional notions of PSI &
PSR and opened up a new area for studying parasocial phenomena
(Kowert & Daniel Jr, 2021).
PSI and PSR can be developed in online travel communities for
shaping community behaviour (Kim & Kim, 2021), building
tourist-destination relationships (Zhang, Xu, & Gursoy, 2020), and

* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: mingz.deng@polyu.edu.hk (Z. Deng), p.benckendorff@uq.edu.au (P. Benckendorff), j.wang16@uq.edu.au (J. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2022.104583
Received 13 September 2021; Received in revised form 25 May 2022; Accepted 2 June 2022
Available online 14 June 2022
0261-5177/Crown Copyright © 2022 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Z. Deng et al.
advancing tourism provider strategies (Haobin Ye, Fong, & Luo, 2020).
Although an increasing number of tourism studies have explored para­
social phenomena in different types of media, TLS has been largely
neglected. Given the growing adoption of TLS by destinations, online
travel agencies (OTAs), and individual travellers, understanding para­
social phenomena can offer theoretical insights and practical guidance
for tourism practitioners. This paper argues that TLS facilitates a greater
level of PSI and PSR between live streamers and viewers. This is because
functional properties and sociality are fundamental elements of live
streaming. When these elements are utilised by travel live streamers and
viewers, they act as technological affordances that provide opportunities
for instigating interactions and relationships. Further, with prior ambi­
guity and confusion on measuring PSI and PSR, TLS offers a unique
technical context to measure these two constructs separately.
By exploring how TLS affordances facilitate PSI and PSR between
travel live streamers and viewers, this study connects research on par­
asocial phenomena with affordances in information technology con­
texts. Connecting the two streams of scholarship can help to extend
understanding of interactions and relationships between travel live
streamers and viewer. More specifically, the paper adopts a typology of
TLS affordances (Deng et al., 2021), which identified four types of
affordances that shape TLS participants’ behaviours: temporal, spatial,
interactive, and media. This study thus extends the PSI and PSR litera­
ture by proposing a conceptual framework to illuminate how these
concepts can be constructed through TLS affordances.
2. Literature review
2.1. Parasocial phenomena and antecedents
Originally proposed by Horton and Wohl (1956) and popularised by
Rubin (e.g., Rubin, Perse, & Powell, 1985; Rubin & McHugh, 1987), PSI
traditionally described a form of one-sided interpersonal interaction that
viewers establish with media personas. PSI typically depicts psycho­
logical responses during a single viewing session but can extend over
multiple sessions and over time some viewers develop social bonds with
media figures that lead to PSR (Dibble, Hartmann, & Rosaen, 2016).
Thus, PSR describes a perceived short- or long-term social relationship
(positive or negative) with a media figure (Giles, 2002). As prominent
concepts in media psychology, parasocial phenomena have been
extensively applied to traditional mass media to discuss its functions as
interpersonal interactions and relationship for people (Liebers &
Schramm, 2019).
Prior literature has found a diverse range of antecedents that foster
parasocial phenomena. Psychological antecedents in viewers include
homophily (Turner, 1993) and loneliness (Lim & Kim, 2011). From a
social perspective, a media persona’s attractiveness (Hoffner, 1996),
identification (Eyal & Rubin, 2003), and gender (Greenwood, Pie­
tromonaco, & Long, 2008) have also been shown to facilitate parasocial
phenomena. These antecedents lead to what Horton and Wohl (1956)
refer to as ‘an illusion of intimacy’ of interaction between audiences and
media characters in traditional mass media contexts. Given the prolif­
eration and advancement of ICT, parasocial research has extended to the
digital sphere (e.g., social media, website) (Labrecque, 2014). Conse­
quently, the construct is no longer constrained by one-way communi­
cation but supported by technology that evolved into two-sided
interaction to more accurately represent social interactions in online
communities (Daniel Jr, Crawford Jackson, & Westerman, 2018; Kassing
& Sanderson, 2009). Findings in ICT contexts indicate that antecedents
such as source characteristics (Sakib, Zolfagharian, & Yazdanparast,
2020), credibility (Sokolova & Kefi, 2020), content characteristics
(Ferchaud, Grzeslo, Orme, & LaGroue, 2018), and digital self (Yuksel &
Labrecque, 2016) are closely tied to parasocial phenomena in online
communities.
While the tourism literature pays considerable attention to how
tourists interact with residents (Eusébio, Vieira, & Lima, 2018), places
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Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583
(Marrocu & Paci, 2013), and other tourists (Lin, Zhang, Gursoy, & Fu,
2019), the PSI construct is rarely examined. Nevertheless, two streams of
inquiry are evident in the limited literature that is available. One stream
focuses on PSI in online travel communities (Choi, Kim, Cha, Suh, &
Kim, 2019; Kim & Kim, 2017, 2021). Collectively, these studies
demonstrate that antecedents such as psychological age, competence,
and emotional attachment are important for fostering PSI and promoting
well-being. Another stream uses PSI as a mediator for investigating a
range of outcomes. For instance, Zhang et al. (2020) investigate the
effect of PSI on celebrity endorsements in destination branding. Simi­
larly, Haobin Ye et al. (2020) examine customers’ PSI with tourism
companies’ social media spokespersons to increase brand identification
and customer behaviour. Despite a growing interest in parasocial
studies, research on parasocial phenomena in live streaming is
conspicuously absent from the tourism literature.
2.2. Live streaming and parasocial phenomena
The live streaming literature provides some evidence for associating
TLS and parasocial phenomena. Although scholarly attention has been
given to gift-sending interaction (e.g., Chen & Lin, 2018; Zhang, Xiang,
& Hao, 2019) and social interaction (Zhou, Zhou, Ding, & Wang, 2019)
in the general live streaming literature, live streamers-viewers’ psy­
chological interactions and relationships also beg attention. Indeed,
several studies emphasise the importance of PSI and PSR in different live
streaming contexts. In live streaming gaming, both PSI and PSR can
impact on viewers’ emotional engagement with live streamers, and
consequently strongly and positively influence viewers’ loyalty in
watching live streaming (Hu et al., 2017; Lim, Choe, Zhang, & Noh,
2020). In e-commerce, PSI also mediate consumers’ buying intentions
(e.g., Zheng, Men, Xiang, & Yang, 2020).
Regarding TLS, it is inferred that PSI can be fostered by travel live
streamers and viewers’ interactions to further develop PSR. As Lin et al.
(2019) argue, tourism activity usually offers more opportunities for in­
teractions. Similarly, TLS may afford more opportunities to foster PSI
and PSR because its properties are functional. For instance, real-time
viewing and interaction may enhance viewers’ perceived intimacy
when the travel live streamer acknowledges the presence of viewers or
responds to their comments. Travel live streamers’ encounters at the
destination and real-time interactions with viewers may increase inter­
active possibilities (e.g., adjusting interpretation of the physical sur­
roundings or performing self) (Deng et al., 2021). We argue that these
potential opportunities for streamers and viewers are triggered by TLS
affordances.
2.3. An affordance perspective on parasocial phenomena
As proposed in ecological psychology (Gibson, 1979), affordance
seeks to explain how an environment offers animals/individuals op­
portunities for actions (Norman, 1988). When applying affordance
theory to technology, the individual person-environment relationship
turns into an individual-technology artefact relationship, or what
Hutchby (2001) called ‘technology affordance’. Technology affordances
are composed of functional and social affordances. The former focuses
on the materiality of a technology, while the later encapsulates the
possibilities for social interaction between individuals via technology
(Zheng & Yu, 2016). Nagy and Neff (2015) propose ‘imaged affordance’
to describe the expectations that users may have for a technological
artefact. Reviewing affordances from different perspectives, this study
draws on technology affordances to shape how they facilitate in­
teractions and relationships.
Social media research has demonstrated how affordances support PSI
and PSR. For example, by exploring Facebook platform affordances (e.
g., privacy, intimacy), Wellman (2020) offers an extension of trans-­
mediated parasocial relationships. Ledbetter and Meisner (2021) reveal
that personal branding affordances of promotion and audience
Z. Deng et al.
involvement on social media foster PSI. Nevertheless, McLaughlin and
Wohn (2021) argued that the affordances of live streaming (e.g.,
streamer-viewers direct interaction; streamer presentation) provide
further opportunities to stimulate parasocial phenomena. Despite
several studies attempting to discuss the relationship between affor­
dances and parasocial phenomena, the role of technology affordances in
facilitating the formation of PSI and PSR is rarely investigated in tourism
literature.
In TLS, technology affordance results from participants (i.e., travel
live streamers, viewers) interacting with live streaming technology.
Deng et al.’s (2021) typology of technology affordances in TLS proposed
that affordances enable travel live streamers and viewers to foster PSI
and PSR. This typology identifies four types of TLS affordances: tem­
poral, spatial, interactivity, and media. Temporal affordance describes
the real-time production and consumption of visual media by travel live
streamers and viewers. Spatial affordance denotes the multiple physical,
virtual and hybrid spaces involved in TLS environment. Interactivity
affordance refers to communication and engagement in TLS. Media
affordance signifies the ability for both travel live streamers and viewers
to use a variety of media (i.e., video, photo, text) in TLS. This paper seeks
to provide empirical confirmation that TLS affordances can facilitate the
generation of PSI and PSR between travel live streamers and viewers.
2.4. Investigating PSI and PSR
While PSI and PSR are often examined using established quantitative
measurement scales, studies seldom use qualitative methods to explore
their associated meanings. Critics of these survey-based studies contend
that scale items cannot capture the nuances of different forms of tech­
nology and media (Schramm & Hartmann, 2008). A further criticism is
that PSI and PSR are different, because PSI represents an immediate
psychological response, while PSR refers to a relatively longer-term
relationship (Dibble et al., 2016). Many existing scales, such as the
most frequently used PSI-Scale (Rubin & McHugh, 1987) assess both PSI
and PSR. Tourism literature is exemplified in the study by Kim and Kim
(2017), who use Hoerner’s (1999) PSI scale to examine older adults’ PSI
with a travel website.
Furthermore, parasocial studies tend to focus on the audience’s
perspective rather than the media figure’s perspective (Brown, 2015;
Sokolova & Kefi, 2020). Since ICT has extended both PSI and PSR to
two-way representations, parasocial activity is no longer limited only to
the imaginary relationship between the audience and media figures. PSI
and PSR are also the impetus for media figures’ promotion to foster
positive interaction and relationship with audiences (Tsay-Vogel &
Schwartz, 2014). Parasocial studies focusing solely on audiences may
limit further theoretical development because they miss an important
part of the bigger picture. Thus, it is important to also explore parasocial
phenomena from the perspective of media figures.
2.5. Parasocial and affordances framework
Fig. 1 proposes the conceptual framework that will frame this study.
It posits that TLS affordances can stimulate interactions between travel
live streamers and viewers, leading to PSI. Over several viewing
Fig. 1. Parasocial and affordances framework.
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Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583
sessions, PSI may develop into PSR. The key argument is that the PSI or
PSR arising from interactions between travel live streamers and viewers
is supported by certain technological affordance of TLS. The following
research question arises from this framework: how do TLS affordances
facilitate PSI and PSR between travel live streamers and viewers?
3. Methodology
3.1. Research design
This research adopts an interpretive paradigm. Interpretivism is
grounded in subjective meanings and shared values of individuals in
social world (Willis, Jost, & Nilakanta, 2007). It assumes that the social
world is produced and constructed via human behaviours and in­
teractions (Lincoln, 1995). Following this paradigm, findings emerge
through interpretations in a particular context, situation, and time; and
the interpretation process involves the back-and-forth movement be­
tween travel live streamers and viewers interactions.
An adaptive research design is required to obtain a detailed portrayal
of live streamer and viewer interactions and the role of TLS affordances.
Thus, this study adopted the ‘more-than-human netnography’ from
Lugosi and Quinton (2018) to explain “how technology platforms
facilitate particular forms of interaction” (p. 290). Among the extant live
streaming literature, quantitative techniques are the most common
method for analysing viewer engagement (e.g., Hilvert-Bruce, Neill,
Sjöblom, & Hamari, 2018). Although these studies are useful for
detecting the relationship between specific mediators, they do not
capture patterns of interaction between live streamers and viewers. In
their study of travel videos, Tussyadiah and Fesenmaier (2009) selected
‘key frames’ from YouTube to capture the important narratives from the
content creators. A key frame is defined as the salient content of the shot
(Ejaz, Mehmood, & Baik, 2013). They also analysed text from viewers’
comments to identify meaningful elements. More recently, Xu, Chen,
Pearce, Mohammadi, and Pearce (2021) analysed the naturalistic data
(comments and video content) in travel vlogs using the bullet comment
system. These studies provide a useful point of departure for the analysis
used in this paper. However, these two approaches were not able to
reveal the two-way interactions among users.
A dataset consisting of live stream videos and viewers’ real-time
comments is potentially richer than data sourced from more tradi­
tional video content. The interactive real-time nature of TLS enables
viewers to make real-time comments. Travel live streamers can imme­
diately respond to viewers’ comments through either verbal or behav­
ioural interactions. This two-way interaction provides important
evidence that connects viewers’ comments with specific video frames as
well as with travel live streamers’ reactions. Moreover, the dataset offers
opportunities to identify a spectrum of interactions between live
streamers and viewers, enabling the researchers to identify instances of
PSI and PSR.
Since more-than-human netnography embraces technological
complexity and allows multi-qualitative methods (Kozinets, Ferreira, &
Chimenti, 2021), this study combines netnography and interviews to
collect the live streaming dataset. Specifically, netnography provides
researchers with strategies to explore online social interactions (Kozi­
nets, 2015) on a given emerging novel phenomenon (Wu & Pearce,
2014), such as the present interest in TLS. However, netnography is
sometimes problematic due to the limited immersion of the researcher
(Mkono, 2013). Therefore, interviews were conducted to collect addi­
tional insights about live streamers’ lived experience, perceptions, and
feelings toward interacting and relationship with viewers through TLS.
3.2. Research sites and sampling
Sina Weibo ad TikTok were chosen as the research sites based on
three criteria proposed by Kozinets (2015), (1) relevance to the research
focus; (2) highly interactive online community; and (3) rich content. To
Z. Deng et al.
ensure the data are generalisable and representative, a case-oriented
strategy (Ragin, 2004) was used to select travel live streamers and
their TLS content. This strategy was useful for two reasons. First, it
allowed us to purposively obtain multiple cases so we could construct
abundant, in-depth descriptions. Second, it was helpful for selecting
travel live streamers who could provide insights into how they produce
different TLS content. To that end, purposive sampling criteria were
developed to recruit travel live streamers on Sina Weibo and TikTok
based on the following selection criteria:
1) Diverse socio-demographic background (e.g., gender, age,
occupation).
2) Diversity of content-based travel typology (e.g., sightseeing, adven­
ture) (Buhalis, 2000).
3) Travel live streamers were categorised into three levels of popularity
as micro influencers (1000–10,000 followers) and macro influencers
(100,000+ followers) (De Veirman, Cauberghe, & Hudders, 2017).
Moderate influencers with 10,000–100,000 followers were classified
in this study.
The aim was to recruit a diverse sample based on these selection
criteria. Personalised invitations were then sent to over 50 travel live
streamers, of which 18 agreed to participate in pre- and post-live stream
interviews (see Appendix 1). Richness of TLS content was also an
important consideration. Since TLS is under-researched in tourism
contexts, no existing tools are available to map data richness was
available. A measurement scale was hence created (1–5) leveraging from
media studies (Otondo, Van Scotter, Allen, & Palvia, 2008; Welbourne &
Grant, 2016) to focus on live streamers’ TLS content richness (Table 1).
All participants recruited for this study were rated 1 or 2 for data
richness.
3.3. Data collection
This study collected three types of data, including travel live streams,
viewers’ comments, and interviews from travel live streamers. The data
collection included three phases: a pre-live stream interview, the live­
stream, and a post-live stream interview (Table 2).
3.3.1. Phase 1: pre-live stream interview
The aim of this phase was to collect relevant personal information
from each travel live streamer. Although the interviews were largely
unstructured in order to follow a “chit-chat” style (Mkono, 2013) and
not orient participants’ answers; a semi-structured interview technique
was used for this research (Longhurst, 2003) to encourage respondents
to talk about their experiences of being a travel live streamer. This
process was conducted through online videoconference tools (e.g.,
WeChat & Skype). Each interview took on average 50 min. The
researcher provided participant information and obtained consent from
participants before conducting each interview.
3.3.2. Phase 2: during-live stream
Each of the 18 participants’ live streaming activities were tracked by
Table 1
TLS content data richness measurement scales.
Score Measurement Example Details
1 Very rich data More than 1 h; a large number of comments
(>2000).
2 Rich data Approximately 1 h; a good number of comments
(501–2000).
3 Relatively rich data Approximate 30 min; a reasonable number of
comments (201–500).
4 Relatively scarce Less than 30 min; some comments (50–200).
data
5 Scarce data Less than 10 min; very few comments (<50).
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Table 2
Data collection procedure.
Pre-live stream Live stream Post-live stream
Netnography
Research Netnography Observe & download
methods entrée live stream video and
& participant comments using Python
selection
Research Weibo & TikTok Weibo & TikTok
sites
Interview
Research Unstructured Unstructured
method interview (video interview (video
call) call)
Research WeChat/Skype WeChat/Skype
location
following and reviewing two or three live streams for each participant.
To observe natural interactions between travel live streamers and
viewers, the researcher acted as a lurker (Mkono, 2011), meaning she
attended the review without participating nor disclosing her identity.
Since travel live streams on Sina Weibo and TikTok are publicly acces­
sible, the facilitator did not seek participant consent (Eysenbach & Till,
2001). A Python program was written to extract a live streaming dataset,
including live streaming videos and viewers’ real-time comments.
3.3.3. Phase 3: post-live stream interview
Interviews were conducted again with the travel live streamers to
further explore how the interactions and relationships developed with
viewers. The follow-up interviews were personalised for each inter­
viewee to target their specific areas of interests before refocusing them
to the wider theme of TLS and its related socio-psychological aspects.
In total, the datasets were drawn from 36 interviews (i.e., two-phase
interviews with 18 travel live streamers, totaling 1440 min), using 42
TLS (totaling 2574 min) and 34,800 real-time comments from viewers.
Data collection was conducted from July 2019 to February 2020.
3.4. Data analysis
To facilitate the data analysis, data processing was performed to: (1)
extract the key frames from the travel live streams, and (2) clean the
associated conversation streams.
Step 1: Key frames extraction
Key frames extraction helps to identify a few highlighted frames that
deal with the video content (Ouyang, Zhong, & Luo, 2018). By applying
a cluster-based algorithm (Wu, Zhong, Jiang, & Yang, 2017) pro­
grammed in Python, the key frames were extracted from the live stream
videos. This process incudes four steps: pre-sampling, video frame rep­
resentation, clustering, and video summarisation result generation
(Fig. 2). First, pre-sampling was used to remove useless frames and to
generate candidate frames S = {S1, S2, …, SM}, where M indicates the
number of candidate frames. Second, an algorithm was programmed in
Python to generate the local features on each candidate frame (Huang &
Wang, 2019). Third, to allocate candidate frames into clusters, cluster
centers were selected with high density (δ > 0.80) (Zhuang, Rui, Huang,
& Mehrotra, 1998). Last, in each cluster centre, the points with lower
density (δ < 0.50) were selected as key frames as they represent unique
and less similar frames (Wu et al., 2017).
The following process was followed to clean the data from the con­
versation streams: (1) a pre-processing procedure was conducted with
the Jieba toolkit (https://pypi.org) (Chen, Huang, & Li, 2020) in Python
to remove all the emojis, stopwords and meaningless words (e.g. haha);
(2) the ROST content mining system 6.0 (Yang, Shuchen, Xiaoxiao, &
Fangping, 2010) was used to separate the purified data into single words
and phrases within a single live stream; and (3) words with frequencies
Z. Deng et al.
Fig. 2. Key frame extraction process.
Step 2: Conversation streams cleaning
of more than 20 within a single TLS were selected for thematic coding.
After data processing, the data were thematically analysed by
combining deductive and inductive approaches for emerging themes
(Cai, McKenna, & Waizenegger, 2020). The conversation streams and
interviews were subjected to a deductive thematic analysis. Inspired by
Xu et al.’s (2021) study on analysing bullet comment in travel vlog,
words and short phrases were manually coded based on the code book
Fig. 3. Key frame analysis example.
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(see Appendix 2). Although pre-defined code schemes from prior codes
(e.g., McLaughlin & Wohn, 2021) were applied in the code book, new
codes were also allowed to emerge during the coding process.
For the live streaming dataset, this study used the qualitative method
developed by Hao and Ryan (2013) to guide the visual data of key
frames analysis. The researcher manually interpreted the content and
provided descriptions for the identified key frames to transform the
Z. Deng et al.
visual cues to text (see Fig. 3). This was followed by open coding to
generate codes that were relevant to the research question. The coding
process was inductively based on the content of specific key frame. Next,
the codes were reviewed and compared to merge themes.
Data triangulation entails combining the interview and live stream­
ing data to form a cohesive story about parasocial phenomenon in TLS. A
series of codes were identified from the accumulated data so that their
inter-relationships were explored to devise higher categories. These
were compared and contrasted to produce aggregate dimensions. The
translation/back-translation technique was employed when translating
codes and their corresponding themes/quotes into English by three
coders (Chen & Boore, 2010). An inter-coder reliability check of percent
agreement (PA) was applied to both the interview and live streaming
dataset analysis. PA in this study reached 91.8%, which exceeds the
measure for good reliability of 85% (Bauer, Franke, & Tuertscher,
2016). Fig. 4 depicts the overall data analysis procedure.
4. Findings
The analysis revealed instances of parasocial interaction between
viewers and travel live streamers. The key findings were organised into a
framework to demonstrate how TLS affordances foster PSI through
technological, social and psychological dimensions (Fig. 5). TLS affor­
dances (i.e., temporal, spatial, interactive and media affordances)
enable multiple repeated instances of PSI between live streamers and
viewers, which lead to two types of PSR, namely, parasocial acquain­
tance and parasocial conflicts.
4.1. Fostering PSI through TLS affordances
This section presents the results from the TLS content (key frames),
viewers’ real-time comments, and travel live streamers’ interviews to
explore the interaction mechanisms. Three dimensions were identified.
4.1.1. Psychological dimensions
Psychological dimensions denote how TLS affordances foster cogni­
tive, affective, and behavioural interactions that strengthen PSI.
Cognitive interaction is linked with audiences’ perception, memory,
and personal judgement of media identities (Rosaen & Dibble, 2008;
Yuksel & Labrecque, 2016). In this study, information seeking, and
knowledge attainment were captured at the cognitive level to foster PSI.
First, information seeking includes viewers who desire to obtain desti­
nation information from the travel live streamer when they have travel
Fig. 4. Data analysis procedure.
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intentions. Through real-time interaction (temporal and interactivity
affordances), viewers can acquire additional information by interacting
with the travel live streamer and other viewers. For instance, in a TLS of
Vienna, when the live streamer introduced viewers to a city scene, they
commented:
Viewer 1 (8:30): Any food recommendations?
Viewer 2 (11:03): How to apply for a visa?
Viewer 3 (16:11): Is this hotel close to the square?
Viewer 4 (23:05): How much is the ticket?
Viewer 5 (36:26): Does google maps work there?
Viewer 6 (60:02): Can you provide us with more travel tips?
While previous literature examined cognitive interaction mainly
from the audience perspective (e.g., Lim et al., 2020), the data in this
study demonstrates that live streamers also seek information (or rec­
ommendations) from viewers to enhance PSI. For example, a travel live
streamer said:
I often ask my viewers for suggestions during live stream. I am an expe­
rienced traveller but not an expert. There are many places that I have not
been to … In my last Bangkok live stream, I asked my viewers to
recommend me food and places to visit if they had travelled to Bangkok
before. This is a good way to bring us closer. (T11).
Second, knowledge attainment describes the situation in which
travel live streamers can project their expertise in TLS (media afford­
ance), through viewing the content; they can interact with streamers to
obtain knowledge. For example, in a TLS about tea culture, the streamer
shares the scenery and shows viewers the tea making process (Fig. 6).
Some viewers provided the following comments:
Viewer 7 (9:21): Improved my knowledge, thanks!
Viewer 8 (14:04): Any stories behind these?
Viewer 9 (28:03): Today’s live streaming is meaningful.
However, in some cases, the temporal affordance of TLS constrained
PSI formation. This is prevalent when viewers challenge travel live
streamers more critically. The temporal TLS affordance can intensify the
situation as travel live streamers cannot edit their reaction. For example,
one explained that: “… Sometimes I feel offended and even embarrassed
with the situation when I am unable to offer viewers a satisfying answer”
(T7). In a self-driving TLS, some viewers commented:
Viewer 10 (11:12): Have you gotten legal license to drive here?
Viewer 11 (35:11): How do you crossing the sea?
Viewer 12 (36:27): Why do you choose this route?
Viewer 13 (45:05): It is more difficult and less scenic.
Affective interaction is characterised by audiences’ emotional
Z. Deng et al.
Fig. 5. Conceptual framework of how TLS affordances foster PSI and PSR.
Fig. 6. Cognitive interaction of knowledge attainment (TLS 33).
reactions toward media figures or content, which is often recognised as a
one-sided reaction (Rubin & McHugh, 1987). Viewers’ real-time com­
ments were replete with emotional responses. Representative words (or
short phrases) such as, fancy, cute, cool, breathtaking, awesome, funny,
exciting, and miss you, were common. However, in some cases, viewers’
also respond with less positive emotions, such as, rich man, envy you;
Why do you not need to work? I envy your life. Many streamers tend to
ignore these comments to avoid conflict. As one expressed, “I have to
control my emotions when reading offensive comments as live streaming can
easily expose my anger” (T18).
Another important element of affective PSI can be linked to
emotional sustenance. As many PSI studies suggest, loneliness may be a
more significant viewing motivation than the media content itself
(Wang, Fink, & Cai, 2008; Lim & Kim, 2011). The analysis revealed that
the need for emotional sustenance was evidenced among both travel live
streamers and viewers. For instance, as a casual live streamer, Hua, said:
“I usually travel alone and do live streaming by myself without a team. One of
the things that TLS brings me is the sense of being accompanied. I can feel
there are viewers out there, being with me” (T1). Some viewers wrote:
7
Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583
Viewer 14 (9:04): I was waiting for your live streaming every day.
Viewer 15 (15:01): I have been accustomed to watch your live
streaming.
Viewer 16 (30:11): Feels fulfilled to watch you live.
Behavioural interaction is characterised by streamers’ reactions to
viewers. The data illustrate that, given media and interactivity affor­
dances, some travel live streamers adopted body gestures and perfor­
mances that fit with viewers’ comments or specific demands. They
blended body languages with performance to highlight their live
streaming viewability. Through temporal affordance, behavioural re­
sponses and changes are communicated to viewers. For example, Su is a
travel influencer with more than 200 million followers. In one of her
TLSs, she performed like a cartoon character. When viewers asked her to
introduce the theme of ‘Day of the Dead’, she pretended to play guitar to
attract viewers to the movie Coco (Fig. 7). In response, viewers were
actively conversing directly:
Viewer 17 (3:14): Play the guitar!
Viewer 18 (5:41): Is that a coffin?
Viewer 19 (22:13): Can you try on that skull mask?
Z. Deng et al.
Fig. 7. Behavioural interaction (TLS 3).
4.1.2. Social dimensions
The social dimensions refer to how TLS affordances support live
streamers to foster PSI with viewers, through signaling their aesthetics
and identity.
First, aesthetics represents the visual appeal of media content that
can lead to positive experience in PSI literature (Ferchaud et al., 2018).
Unlike the edited format of travel videos, where aesthetics can be
enhanced with production techniques (e.g., editing skills) (Xu et al.,
2021), aesthetics in TLS refers to the media and interactivity affordances
that enable travel live streamers to use visual cues to construct live
content and interact with viewers. The concern here is not with the
technical aesthetics of the video (e.g., settings, light, color), but rather
with the aesthetics live streamers include to construct TLS content. An
analysis of the key frames demonstrated that participants tend to show
their aesthetics in TLS through specific travel activities, such as city
sightseeing, theme park entertainment, and hiking. These activities can
attract (or target) specific groups of viewers for interactions (Fig. 8).
At times, travel live streamers use aesthetics to co-create content
Fig. 8. TLS aesthetics (1).
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Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583
with viewers. For instance, Chen is a travel live streamer who indulges in
creating food related TLS in different destinations. He stated:
I am a foodie; stream food is the key theme in my TLS …. There is
something unique about food; live streaming is a great way to express that.
Sometimes, my viewers interact with each other to talk about recipes, and
provide food recommendations to me (T10, Fig. 9).
This example illustrates how aesthetics can heighten PSI for viewers
who identify with streamer’s activities and rely on what he perceives or
recommends about food. Viewers expressed the following reactions to
this live streamer’s content:
Viewer 20 (5:16): You always find the best food in town.
Viewer 21 (17:21): I tried the char siu you recommend.
Viewer 22 (29:53): You should try the beef soup.
Viewer 23 (45:04): Where is your next stop for food adventure?
Second, identity is recognised as one of the most essential anteced­
ents of PSI (Brown & Basil, 2010) when travel live streamers focus on
displaying their sense of self (Brown, 2015). The media and temporal
Z. Deng et al. Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583

Fig. 9. TLS aesthetics (2) (TLS 25).

affordances of TLS enable travel live streamers to signal their identity in
an unedited or raw feed format. For example, one travel live streamer
said: “I talk a lot in the live stream to show viewers my personality, so that
they can have the intuitive sense to know me and really bring us closer” (T6).
This characteristic is evident when live streamers interact with viewers
with an enthusiastic and humorous identity. Viewers thus become
actively involved in interactions, and sometimes respond as if they were
in a real relationship with the live streamer. For example, viewers noted:
Viewer 24 (8:56): I wish you were my sister.
Viewer 25 (10:12): I want to travel with you.
Viewer 26 (16:14): Take care of yourself.
4.1.3. Technological dimensions
The technological dimension indicates how TLS affordances support
travel live streamers to create real-time spatial interactions that
strengthen PSI.
First, TLS temporal and spatial affordances enable streamers to
create real-time spaces to interact with viewers. Regarding TLS space,
the physical space of the destination and the virtual environment of live
streaming space converge to create a hybrid digital space (Deng et al.,
2021). On one hand, temporal affordance allows travel live streamers to
update viewers about their experience in real-time. On the other hand,
viewers virtually travel to places through streamers’ eyes (Fig. 10). For
instance, one travel live streamer said: “I was constantly updating viewers;
it feels like I was travelling with them” (T4). The immediacy and sense of
being ‘in the now’ heightens the experience for viewers as they vicari­
ously experience another location. For example, a Budapest TLS moti­
vated some viewers to comment.

Fig. 10. Real-time spaces (TLS 20).

9
Z. Deng et al.
Viewer 27 (9:05): I feel I am travelling from home now.
Viewer 28 (20:23): I travelled many places through your streaming.
Viewer 29 (30:13): I feel I have already been there.
Real-time interaction creates value for travel live streamers as they
are not only willing to share the tourism experience, but also desire to
have an effective interaction with viewers: “I can hold direct conversa­
tions with my viewers, it is much more convenient and effective” (T2).
Another travel live streamer noted that, “… many viewers are curious
about what are you doing, what is happening, right here, right now”. This
perception is evidenced in many viewers’ real-time comments, for
instance, in a Finland TLS, viewers made the following comments:
Viewer 30 (16:52): What is the time now in Finland?
Viewer 31 (17:10): Are you strolling around the city?
Viewer 32 (38:25): Where are you heading to?
4.2. Developing PSR through TLS affordances
This section draws primarily on the interviews with travel live
streamers to explore PSR. The analysis revealed two pathways from PSI
to PSR: (i) parasocial acquaintance, and (ii) parasocial conflicts.
4.2.1. Parasocial acquaintance
Parasocial acquaintance describes how a harmonious relationship
evolves between travel live streamers and viewers. It includes three el­
ements: community extension, friendship formation, and social
dependence.
Community extension. Analysis from the interviews revealed that
interactions between travel live streamers and viewers extended from
the live streaming platform to other online communities (e.g., Weibo
and WeChat). These extended online communities are not a substitute
for live streaming interaction, but rather are complementary for further
communication and relationship building. TLS affordances appear to act
as a catalyst to help travel live streamers and viewers establish PSI. For
example:
TLS pushed me to build up other chat groups. Now I have two online
groups on WeChat. One is for communicating with my followers, another
one is more focused on professional travel-related information discussion
(e.g., recreational vehicle repacking) … I am willing to interact with
viewers as some of them really want me to share travel tips that they may
not have grasped in my live stream. (T 6)
Similarly, Hu a backpacking live streamer noted, “… some viewers
appreciate and enjoy my travel style and values. They are interested in the
adventure activities through my live stream, and I am more than happy to
have further interaction with them” (T11).
Friendship formation describes how travel live streamers and
viewers develop friendship through multiple TLS viewing experiences.
Where PSI occurs, friendship gradually develops as further interactions
take place. Through this process, the interactive affordance of TLS fa­
cilitates an enduring relationship, which can be perceived as friendship
characterised by frequency of interaction, “… some viewers show up very
often in my live stream. When I spot comments from them, I prefer to have
more interactions with them” (T9). After PSI, friendship is strengthened
through meaningful interaction and support, which is more real than the
intimacy of PSI, as Feng stated:
I often notice some familiar IDs in my live stream, they are always very
supportive, active, caring my safety during streaming … They joined my
follower group and are active members …. even helped me to organise
offline gatherings when I travelled to their cities. It is quite warm and
touching as we never knew each other before, but travel makes us become
friends (T17).
Mutual dependence describes how interactions create a relationship
of interdependence between travel live streamers and viewers. The
analysis revealed that mutual dependence was formed through knowl­
edge dependence. Knowledge dependence means travel live streamers
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Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583
and viewers learn from each other through interactions. For example, as
Long mentioned:
Most of my viewers are keen on obtaining travel tips as they know I have
been traveling to a lot of places around the world. Sometimes, I expect to
learn something new and get suggestions from my viewers as well, espe­
cially those viewers who have lived, worked, or traveled to the destination
before (T9).
Dependence becomes manifest in the feelings when streamers
accompanied by viewers during travel through temporal and interactive
affordances. For example, Xiao explained: “I usually do live streaming by
myself. Sometimes, when I travel to a place where I have never been before, I
would like to do live streaming as I have others (viewers) I can talk to and
interact with. It feels like I am not travelling alone and viewers can accom­
pany me through the way” (T18).
4.2.2. Parasocial conflicts
Parasocial conflict describes the development of disharmonious re­
lationships between travel live streamers and viewers. Based on the
analysis, parasocial conflicts are linked with two aspects: cognitive
conflicts (e.g., perceptions, values) and affective conflicts (e.g., envy,
doubt).
Cognitive conflict is characterised by disagreements with respect to
perceptions, opinions and values towards destination/activity choice, or
content production. The temporal and interactivity affordances of TLS
can trigger continuous conflict. As Yi expressed:
Most of my travels are with family. I like to share my tips on how to choose
hotels, restaurants or activities for family travelers, especially those with
kids. Indeed, I embrace different opinions because I can learn something
new … but there are always critical voices. Some viewers not only argue
with me in live streaming interactions but also hold different perceptions
on my sharing in group chats, such as it is not a good place to travel with
kids … It made me realise that they are actually judging me on everything
(T1).
Affective conflict depicts emotional responses such as envy, or doubt
from viewers. Given the temporal and media affordances, viewers are
able to watch the presentation of travel live streamer in a relatively real
mode. However, as Jiang explained, “some viewers tend to release their
negative emotions because they are watching me travel around. Viewers think
I do not have to work but can travel all the time. It annoys me. As a full-time
traveller, I treat live streaming as my job, they have no idea how much effort I
have put onto it.” (T16).
5. Discussion and conclusion
This study provides several insights into how TLS affordances shape
PSI and PSR between travel live streamers and viewers. It thus addresses
McLaughlin and Wohn’s (2021) call for more research to illuminate
“how parasocial constructs can be applied and interpreted in a live
streaming context” (p. 2). It also responds to calls regarding how
different affordances of new social media provide opportunities for
influencers to modulate behaviours and relationships with others
(Femenia-Serra, Gretzel, & Alzua-Sorzabal, 2021).
The findings indicated that there was a psychological dimension to
PSI. It is widely accepted that psychological dimensions are important
factors for facilitating PSI (Liebers & Schramm, 2019). The paper probes
this aspect and shows that given TLS affordances, cognitive traits such as
information seeking and knowledge attainment can govern PSI (Soko­
lova & Kefi, 2020). Affective interaction (emotional reaction, suste­
nance) supports claims in the literature that emotional engagement is an
important antecedent of PSI (Cummins & Cui, 2014; Sun, 2010; Xiang,
Zheng, Lee, & Zhao, 2016). However, negative tension has also been
detected. Given the temporal affordance of TLS can constrain cognitive
interaction, travel live streamers may not be able to provide mutual
responses in real-time. This finding points to what Sanderson and Truax
Z. Deng et al.
(2014) called maladaptive PSI, to describe how media figures suffer
from hateful expressions via social media. The results also show that
behavioural interaction is achieved through travel live streamers’ body
language and performance because the media affordance provides them
with opportunities to perform and answer viewers’ requests. Neverthe­
less, prior PSI research does not explore behavioural elements such as
body gestures and performance. This is because researchers have pri­
marily investigated PSI through textual data (e.g., survey, interview)
and have focused on the audience’s perspective. TLS provides travel live
streamers with affordances to interact with viewers’ comments
linguistically and behaviourally.
The media, temporal, and interactivity affordances of TLS support a
social approach by enabling travel live streamers to present their aes­
thetics and identifications. Consistent with the traditional and digital
media literature, these findings demonstrate that PSI can be elicited
through identification (Brown & Basil, 2010) and content characteristics
(Ferchaud et al., 2018). In addition, PSI between travel live streamers
and viewers was facilitated by a technological dimension. The temporal,
spatial, and interactivity affordances of TLS create a two-way interaction
environment that not only enables live streamers to narrate their ac­
tivities, but also allows viewers to interact with streamers in real-time.
This finding is consistent with live streaming research in gaming and
marketing, which indicates that the two-way digital environment stim­
ulates PSI (Hu et al., 2017). Notably, the spatial affordance provides a
hybrid environment that distinguishes TLS from other online activities
(e.g., live streaming gaming, e-commerce) (Deng et al., 2021). The
breadth of tourism offers diverse opportunities for interaction (Lin et al.,
2019). By organising live streaming activities around destinations, live
streamers can construct a sense of “almost being there” (Mueser &
Vlachos, 2018). This idea can be linked to social presence, which is
recognised as important to fostering PSI in live streaming (e.g., Shin,
Song, Kim, & Biocca, 2019).
Moreover, the paper reveals that friendship formed through virtual
interactions is not a short-term psychological response, but rather
formed through the longer-term development of PSR. This is contrasts
with the previous literature, which identified friendship was an indi­
cator for fostering PSI (Dibble & Rosaen, 2011). Viewers desire to
establish more intimate relationships with streamers by expanding the
TLS community to other online platforms (e.g., WeChat) can lead to
friendships. By organising offline gatherings, community extension
echoes Chung and Cho’s (2014) argument that PSR can lead to actual
real-life interactions. This seems particularly true for travel live
streamers because their mobility allows them to connect with viewers in
destinations they visit. In contrast to most parasocial research that
identify positive elements, this paper showed that the temporal and
interactivity affordances can generate and intensify cognitive and af­
fective conflicts during TLS. Consequently, these conflicts may lead to
negative and unhealthy relationship outcomes such as aggression (Eyal
& Rubin, 2003) or breakup (Gregg, 2018).
5.1. Theoretical contributions
This research contributes to theories in three ways. First, this paper
enriches the discussions of PSI and PSR within the emerging TLS context.
Parasocial research in the tourism literature remains limited (Haobin Ye
et al., 2020). This study adds to existing knowledge about tourists’
interaction and relationship in online travel communities (Choi et al.,
2019; Kim & Kim, 2017, 2021). It extends the focus to include both
viewers and travel live streamers’ perspectives when investigating par­
asocial phenomena. This differs from the literature, which largely fo­
cuses on the audience but neglects media personas. More importantly, it
differentiates between PSI and PSR, to provide further evidence for the
argument that PSI and PSR are conceptually different (Dibble et al.,
2016). Second, this paper sheds light on the theoretical link between
technology affordances and parasocial phenomena. Specifically, it illu­
minates travel live streamers-viewers interactions and relationships in
11
Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583
the highly interactive and hybrid setting provided by TLS, adding to
discussion on technology affordances and parasocial phenomena in the
digital era (Zhang, Liu, Wang, & Zhao, 2022). Third, this study offers
new knowledge about the TLS. Although as a cutting-edge technology,
live streaming has earned considerable attention in the technology and
marketing fields (Hu et al., 2017; Wongkitrungrueng, Dehouche, &
Assarut, 2020), it is less widely studied in the tourism literature. By
exploring travel live streamers-viewers’ interactions and relationships,
this paper adds to the conceptual work of Deng et al. (2021), who call for
further empirical work to elaborate TLS. A conceptual framework was
developed to uncover the TLS affordances underlying PSI and PSR
establishment process.
5.2. Methodological development
This study adopts a more-than-human netnographic approach to
address the research question. Netnography was employed to collect the
live streaming dataset (live stream content and viewers’ comments) to
provide tangible insights into travel live streamer-viewer interactions.
Interviews were used to research travel live streamers’ lived experience
to further explore the relationship extended beyond every single live
streaming reception. This customised method helped to distinguish be­
tween instances of PSI and PSR. It is also a response to calls from other
researchers to use this method to obtain new informative data related to
technology-mediated practices (Kozinets et al., 2021; Lugosi & Quinton,
2018).
5.3. Practical contributions
This research also has practical implications for travel live streamers,
destinations, and TLS platforms. First, given TLS affordances, the find­
ings draw attention to psychological interactions (i.e., cognitive, affec­
tive, behavioural) in formulating PSI/PSR. Since face-to-face social
interaction is reduced during times of crisis (e.g., COVID-19), PSI and
PSR are becoming important for individuals’ wellbeing (Jarzyna, 2021).
Travel live streamers who attempt to sustain a following on social media
should focus on cognition improvement (e.g., knowledge) or emotion
management (e.g., coping). Second, as the findings show that TLS
affordances can facilitate PSI through social dimensions of identification
and aesthetics, destinations should consider such elements when
collaborating with travel live streamers to design destination promotion
campaigns. Third, the findings also revealed that TLS affordances can
foster PSI through the technological dimensions of real-time spaces and
interaction. Live streaming platforms should refine platform functions to
empower users with more affordances for online interaction and rela­
tionship building.
5.4. Limitations and future research
Despite the above contributions, this study has three limitations.
First, given the study was designed using a digital qualitative approach
to explore parasocial phenomena via TLS affordances, the focus was not
on confirming statistical relationships between specific affordances and
identified parasocial elements. Thus, future research could quantita­
tively test the effectiveness of identified parasocial elements to investi­
gate further relationships. Second, although this study was conducted to
explore parasocial phenomena from both travel live streamers and
viewers’ perspectives, the data related to PSR were gathered from a
travel live streamer perspective, which omits the viewer’s responses.
Viewers’ responses to PSR with travel live streamers could be inter­
preted differently. More importantly, viewers perspectives are of vital
significance because TLS possess two-sided interaction. Future research
should include viewers’ perspective when investigating the parasocial
elements in facilitating PSR in TLS setting. This will require quantitative
methods using a large database. Third, the research findings primarily
come from two Chinese platforms. Findings may vary if applied to other
Z. Deng et al. Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583

platforms. Since different platform has unique affordances (Comunello,
Mulargia, & Parisi, 2016), it is important for future studies need to
consider collecting data from other social media platforms where TLS is
applicable (e.g., YouTube, Instagram, Twitch). Furthermore, in the
turbulent environment of pandemic, online interactions and relation­
ships become more desired. Accordingly, future research could explore
tourism organisations’ requirements for parasocial engagement and
corresponding outcomes (e.g., destination marketing, crisis
communication).
Credit author statement
Zhiming Deng: Conceptualisation, Methodology, Investigation,
Formal analysis, Writing – original draft, Project administration. Pierre
Benckendorff: Conceptualisation, Supervision, Writing -editing. Jie
Wang: Conceptualisation, Supervision, editing.
Impact statement
This paper is one of the first attempts to theoretically link affordance
and parasocial research to understand travel live streamers-viewers’
parasocial interactions and parasocial relationship development in the
Travel Live Streaming (TLS). The findings provide practical implications
for travel live streamers, DMOs, tourism organisations, and live
streaming platforms. Knowledge about how TLS affordances enable
parasocial interaction and relationship offers insights for travel live
streamers cater effective interaction and relationship with viewers. The
findings also help DMOs and tourism organisations to leverage the
power of TLS affordances and corporate with travel live streamers to
develop customer relationships. The obtained results further inform that
live streaming platforms need to consider the technical dimensions of
interaction when designing platform functionalities.

Funding information Declaration of competing interest

None. The authors have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Appendix 1. Participant profiles

Demographic factors Frequencies (N = 18)

Nationality Chinese 17
Japanese 1
Gender Male 8
Female 10
Age group 20–29 12
30–39 5
40–49 1
Platform Weibo 10
TikTok 8
Number of followers Above 100,001 5
10,001–100,000 7
1001–10,000 5
Below 1000 1
Travel type Tourism destination 12
Adventure Tourism 2
Heritage/cultural tourism 2
Drive tourism 1
Rural tourism 1

Appendix 2. Code book

Coding scheme Interview-streamers (initial codes) Comments-viewers (word frequency)

Affordances
Temporal share simultaneously
interact immediately
Spatial bring viewers to destination
travel with viewers
Interactivity directly response to comments/demands
Media create raw feed visual content
show preference
Parasocial interaction
Psychological components
Affective be appreciated like (7,760)
negative comments (do) not work (6,432)
misunderstandings happy (5,653)
receive warm compliments exciting (5,328)
control emotions adore (4,943)
accompanied by viewers boring (1,673)
Cognitive share information recommendations (6,404)
seek advice from viewers tips (6,326)
receive different opinions meaningful (7,971)
accommodation (5,307)
route (4,326)
(continued on next page)

12
Z. Deng et al. Tourism Management 93 (2022) 104583

(continued )
Coding scheme Interview-streamers (initial codes) Comments-viewers (word frequency)

season (to travel) (4014)

story (2,001)
Behavioural direct action watch (10,501)
co-create with viewers try (6,692)
play (5,982)
walk (3,003)
show (1,854)
choose (772)
plan (437)
Social components
Content characteristics live streaming interests beautiful (11,330)
integrate favorites into content scenery (10,234)
funny (5,328)
lovely (4,971)
Live streamer identity be energetic cute (9,985)
keep talking humor (6,157)
be self good English (1,201)
Technological components
Functional features connect with viewers in real-time travel with (10,230)
virtually travel with viewers being there (8,635)
now (8,034)
(travel) from home (7,653)
Parasocial relationship
Relationship building
Engagement familiar IDs
frequent interaction
Community development other online communities
Longer-term relationship offline gathering
becoming friends
Relationship development
Positive sense of accompany
knowledge/information exchange
Negative receive critical judging
put up with negative emotions

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Pierre Benckendorff (p.benckendorff@uq.edu.au) is Deputy
Dean of the University of Queensland (UQ) Graduate School
and Associate Professor in the UQ Business School. His research
interests include visitor behaviour, tourism information tech­
nologies, and tourism education and training.

Zhiming Deng (mingz.deng@polyu.edu.hk) is a postdoctoral

research fellow in the School of Hotel and Tourism Manage­
ment, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Her research foci
have been technology affordance and user behaviours in Travel
Live Streaming. Her research interests include information
technology and tourism, experience design, and hotel
Jie Wang (j.wang16@uq.edu.au) is Senior Lecturer in the
sustainability.
Business School, the University of Queensland, Australia. Her
research interests are associated with risk crisis management,
and resilience in tourism and hospitality.

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