Integrating the theoretical foundations of symbolic interactionism, parasocial interaction, direct affect transfer, push and pull motivational framework, and narrative transportation, this study investigates the determinants of tourists’ intention to visit a destination using Heidi, a famous literary and television series persona, as a stimulus. Place attachment, ad-evoked positive affect, and motivation were theorized as antecedents of intention to visit and imagination proclivity as a moderator. The model was tested using data collected from 410 prospective Spanish tourists. Results show motivation and place attachment as key determinants of intention to visit among individuals with higher imagination proclivity, while positive affect was most relevant for individuals with low imagination proclivity. Findings expand our understanding of travel intention toward unvisited destinations, providing empirical support that place attachment, positive affect, and motivation are engendered by prior media exposure and moderated by tourists’ imagination proclivity.

The study aims to examine the sentiment differences in the content of cruise tour online reviews across North Americans and Europeans, as representing the two largest cruise markets. Dictionary-based sentiment analysis has been carried out on 1127 reviews on guided tours retrieved from TripAdvisor. The results indicate significant differences in the sentiment score of the reviews, with North Americans’ texts being more emotionally charged than the European ones. In addition, North Americans’ reviews conveyed a more positive affect and had a more subjective and intimate tone, while those written by Europeans contained a smaller amount of sentiment-bearing words and their tone was more objective. The study’s contribution lies in (i) providing evidence for the influence of culture on electronic word-of-mouth communication in terms of varying sentiment expression, (ii) demonstrating the effectiveness of sentiment analysis for recognizing cultural differences and (iii) enhancing the current understanding of cruisers’ tour experience.