1. Introduction
The sustainability of local festivals is important because they provide benefits to the community. Communities can generate economic income by discovering unique local content [
1], and festivals provide an opportunity to externally promote this content [
2]. However, festivals held by small cities often face budgeting issues, so it is hard to be active in marketing. In this situation, advances in information technology (IT) may act as another opportunity to promote the sustainability of the local festival industry.
During the period in which the Internet became popular, local tourism websites were used as the main platform to provide travelers with up-to-date tourist information in the region [
3]. Many travelers have recently been able to get or share information about local festivals through various IT platforms. Social network services (SNS), which emerged around 2010, are regarded as one of the megatrends influencing tourism systems [
4]. These platforms not only allow travelers to search for information [
5] but also help them make decisions about visiting tourist attractions or festivals [
6]. SNS is also rated as having the ability for travelers to engage with potential customers by sharing comments, videos, photos, and more [
4]. Tourists upload their local photos to SNS, and potential customers who view this content through SNS are attracted to the region. Given that potential tourists primarily rely on the opinions of others, such as word of mouth (WOM), for decision-making [
7], SNS are the best method to encourage them to participate in local festivals. From the festival organizers’ point of view, SNS help to effectively promote local festivals [
8].
The emerging crowdfunding platform is also a valuable tool to promote local festivals. Businesspeople have said that they use crowdfunding to market their projects or communicate with fans or supporters [
9]. They can also increase their brand awareness through crowdfunding [
10]. Many arts and cultural projects, for example, make heavy use of crowdfunding because in addition to attracting funds, they can also promote funding simultaneously [
11]. A notable example is Big Issue Korea, which raised funds through crowdfunding for the Nutcracker, a play in which homeless people played a major role. The press recognized the crowdfunding by Big Issue Korea, which saw great results from the promotion [
12].
Crowdfunding can be linked with SNS to maximize the promotion of local festivals [
13]. Most crowdfunding sites provide the SNS information of individual operators and include the function to share crowdfunding information. Potential participants can use SNS information to determine various indicators of various crowdfunding, which can have a social impact on participants’ support decisions [
14]. Individuals spread crowdfunding information to others, and those exposed to it can receive festival and crowdfunding information. Therefore, it is meaningful to consider the effects of electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) and crowdfunding factors on social network services.
While crowdfunding platforms are being assessed as a means of sustainability for local festivals, previous research has focused primarily on the effect of social network services [
4,
5]. However, these works omit the impact of associations between one or more online services and the intention to visit a tourist destination. Online marketing tools show an important diversity, and consumers are also able to receive tourism information through a range of various online channels. This indicates the importance of investigating the effects of multiple marketing tools simultaneously. Therefore, this study constitutes the framework of study considering not only (1) e-WOM, which is the main effect of social network services, but also (2) the role of a new medium—crowdfunding.
With regard to crowdfunding factors, this study examines the influence of perceived economical, emotional, social, and altruistic values about film festival crowdfunding on the intention to visit the region of film festivals. In addition, the perceived risk of film festival crowdfunding is applied as a mediating variable. Perceived risk is considered a useful variable in exploring the user’s perception of uncertainty in accepting new IT services. Therefore, it is a meaningful approach to look at the effects of perceived risks on film festival crowdfunding. Regarding the role of e-WOM, it applies the intention to use electronic word of mouth (e-WOM) as mediating variables. E-WOM was proven to be an effective way to promote tourist destinations at a low cost [
15]. The intention to use e-WOM is thus a meaningful variable to examine the effects of crowdfunding as a tool for disseminating information about festivals. In addition, the framework includes inner innovativeness as one of the independent variables. This approach is to consider not only the marketing platform but also the personal characteristic as an explanatory variable.
This research model draws on the frameworks of several studies that examine factors influencing the intention to visit tourist destinations [
16,
17]. These studies assume that measures of online consumer behavior, such as e-WOM [
16] and blog usage [
17], mediate explanatory variables relating to the intention to visit tourist destinations. This study proposes an extended framework by applying the explanatory variables and some mediating variables suggested above considering the characteristics of the subject and factors. Thus, this framework examines tourists’ perceptions, intentions, and actions as a whole. Given the continuing increase in the impact of information technology services in the tourism industry, it will help to increase sustainability in regional tourism industries with unstable conditions.
5. Discussion and Conclusions
This study aims to empirically examine how the perceived value of crowdfunding and inner innovativeness affect the intention to visit the film festival. For this, perceived risk and e-WOM were applied as mediating variables. Structural equation modeling was applied, and data were collected through an online survey. As a result, 6 of 12 research hypotheses were supported. Accordingly, we confirmed through its effects that crowdfunding is an important platform for promoting sustainability at local film festivals.
First of all, emotional values (H1-2) and altruistic values (H1-4) negatively affected perceived risk. This supports the findings of previous studies, which indicate that individuals perceive low levels of risk when they have a sense of worth regarding a given service or product [
46]. These variables are commonly considered to be related to emotional characteristics rather than to cognitive ones. These results indicate that consumers are more likely to obtain emotional value as a result of the crowdfunding of cultural products, such as festival crowdfunding. Another notable aspect is that the path coefficient for emotional value (B = −0.401) was higher than the altruistic value (B = −0.306). This implies that emotional value has greater explanatory power. Future studies should develop this framework by developing detailed factors for emotional value. Interestingly, economic value effects were not confirmed. It is expected that the effects of economic value vary in relation to the type of crowdfunding. Moysidou and Spaeth’s (2016) study, which examined the impact of economic value on behavioral intention by project type, found an influence of economic value in revenue-based crowdfunding, such as equity-based and loan-based projects [
41]. Individuals may not take economic value into account for donation-based or reward-based crowdfunding, including cultural goods. Economic relates to the amount of monetary benefit that an individual can receive. Individuals do not generally seek financial benefits when they participate in donation and reward-based crowdfunding. Rather, they seek to meet non-monetary needs, such as social approval or self-realization [
43]. In particular, individuals’ non-monetary motivations are likely to be more prominent in cultural goods, such as in relation to local film festival crowdfunding, which mainly has non-commercial purposes.
For hypotheses 2-1 to 2-4, only social values (H2-3) positively affected the intention to use e-WOM. Social values and intention to use e-WOM both rest on the concept of social relationships. This result means that perception of the value of interacting with others through participation in festival crowdfunding can affect social interactions online. Prior studies have found that perception of quality in the general product area, such as food, can affect WOM [
49]. On the other hand, social value effects were identified in this study. It is unclear whether these results can be attributed to the nature of the experience or to crowdfunding type. Further research is needed.
Next, inner innovativeness was found not to affect perceived risk and e-WOM intentions. These results indicate that the consumer’s inner innovativeness is not related to the perception of festival crowdfunding. Regarding perceived risks, Foxall (1988) proposed that risk perceptions vary according to the type of users [
96]. This means that early adopters underestimate the risk compared to late adopters. Accordingly, future studies should identify the audience characteristics for film festival crowdfunding and examine the relationship between inner innovativeness and perceived risk for each type. Regarding e-WOM, previous studies on innovation have shown a different view of claims. For example, Summers (1970) argued that highly innovative people tend to give opinions to people [
64], but Rogers (1995) argued that innovation is related to information seeking [
53]. The two studies each focused on the production and acceptance of information. By contrast, Sun et al. (2006) verified that innovativeness has a significant impact on both online information leadership, which includes the concept of e-WOM, and information seeking [
67]. Given the inconsistent claims of the previous studies, further research should examine the relationship between innovativeness and e-WOM.
Third, perceived risk negatively affects the intention to visit the film festival (H5). This result is consistent with the findings of previous studies, which indicated that perceived risk for crowdfunding affects actual behavior [
46,
78]. This also means that, if an individual underestimates the risk of festival crowdfunding, they can visit the festival. Last, the intention to use e-WOM also had a positive effect on the intention to visit the film festival (H6). This result is consistent with previous studies that have suggested that e-WOM has a positive effect on travel intention [
15,
17]. The action to share the usefulness of festival crowdfunding with friends is believed to be based on trust or interest in the film festival. This means that positive perceptions of the film festival can lead to real action, such as visiting a festival. However, there is also the possibility that control variables may have some bearing on the intention to use e-WOM and the intention to visit a film festival. For example, actual behavior may vary depending on perceived involvement in film festivals or crowdfunding platforms. Future research will be needed to expand the research model by exploring moderating variables.
As for H5 and H6, earlier study of tourism crowdfunding used crowdfunding behavior as a dependent variable. Our study, however, set the intention to visit a festival as an outcome variable and not a crowdfunding behavior, and found that it is affected by explanatory variables. This means that the effects on the service platform can affect consumers’ behavior in relation to the topic of crowdfunding beyond the platform. If individuals have a positive perception of crowdfunding services, this may indirectly indicate that they have a positive perception of crowdfunding as well as of the service platform. Therefore, crowdfunding goes beyond investment to acting as a marketing tool, attracting individual visits to local film festivals and further enhancing the sustainability of local film festivals.
This study has theoretical implications. First, previous work has examined factors affecting the intention to participate in festival crowdfunding [
97,
98], but overall, too little work has been done on the effects of crowdfunding in tourism. Additionally, from a marketing perspective, few analyses or in-depth discussions of festival crowdfunding have been done. This study is thus an important examination of the influence of tourism crowdfunding. Second, this study proposed a framework to examine the marketing effects of crowdfunding in tourism. It has been confirmed that the influence of certain variables varies depending on the type of crowdfunding being considered. As noted, we found that emotional factors should be taken seriously in the study of donation-based and reward-based crowdfunding. If this framework is properly modified in response to the results of this study, festival-visiting behavior can be explained in greater detail. Third, to supplement existing research trends, structural modeling is proposed in relation to perceived risk and e-WOM as mediating variables between value factors and behavioral intentions. This approach can provide a useful aid to studies dealing with online communication environments and platforms with high uncertainty, such as crowdfunding platforms.
This study provides practical guidelines to help with festival sustainability. First, this study confirmed that the crowdfunding platform can be used as a marketing tool. It was found that factors related to crowdfunding platforms, such as perceived risk and e-WOM, drive intentions to visit the festival. Therefore, even if the film festival does not need financial help, marketers should open a crowdfunding page to provide an opportunity to access the film festival crowdfunding and obtain information. Second, marketers should build their value strategy differently depending on the type of crowdfunding. Marketers encourage consumers to perceive economic value for equity-based and loan-based crowdfunding, whereas, for non-revenue types such as donation-based or reward-based, marketers should provide an opportunity to gain emotional value or the need for approval. Finally, marketers can understand consumers’ e-WOM behavior and strategically use it. Crowdfunding, for example, is compatible with SNS. Moreover, users can share information about crowdfunding via SNS. Therefore, this study is expected to provide a guide for developing and implementing a marketing strategy that simultaneously utilizes SNS and crowdfunding platforms to enhance the e-WOM effect on film festivals.
Regarding limitations, in this study, film festival crowdfunding is still an emerging market, so it was difficult to conduct online surveys for actual users. Respondents to this study experienced indirect festival crowdfunding only through the experimental treatment provided by the researcher. Future researches may conduct online surveys in collaboration with film festival crowdfunding providers, who can directly contact actual users. Next, follow-up studies should take a closer look at the effects of other factors on the intention to visit a film festival. Potential consumers will recognize not only the risks directly related to the festival but also the risks of the crowdfunding investment in their decision to visit the festival. Thus, in addition to the perceived risk of participation in film festival crowdfunding, risks associated with the consumption behaviors that are seen during participation in the festival should also be considered. Finally, future studies should be conducted that investigate multi-dimensional inner innovativeness. Certain studies have also reviewed how well individuals accept brands or images related to innovation [
54], but these have mainly involved emotional indicators, so to examine the effects of inner innovativeness, both cognitive and emotional perspectives should be considered.