How perceived virtual-idol advertising appeals shape impulsive hotel booking intention: identity-activated persuasion in Saudi hospitality

Virtual idols – digitally created influencers with programmable personas and symbolic identities – are increasingly used in hospitality marketing, yet the processes through which their perceived advertising appeals shape booking-related responses remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on the Stimulus – Organism – Response framework, this study examines how emotional, informative, creative, and entertaining appeals in virtual-idol hotel advertising influence self-congruence and self-referencing, and how these identity-related processes subsequently predict impulsiveness and impulsive hotel booking intention. Survey data were collected from 385 Saudi consumers aged 18–45 who had prior exposure to virtual-idol or AI-generated influencer content and recent online hotel-booking experience. The model was assessed using PLS-SEM, mediation and moderation analyses, and PLSpredict. The results reveal differentiated appeal pathways. Emotional and entertainment appeals positively predict both self-congruence and self-referencing, creativity predicts only self-congruence, and informativeness predicts only self-referencing. Both self-congruence and self-referencing increase impulsiveness, which mediates their relationships with impulsive hotel booking intention. Social influence strengthens the relationship between self-congruence and impulsiveness but does not significantly moderate the self-referencing pathway. Technology anxiety weakens the self-congruence – impulsiveness relationship but unexpectedly strengthens the self-referencing – impulsiveness relationship. The findings clarify how perceived virtual-idol advertising appeals become relevant to impulsive booking intention through distinct identity-processing routes and show that these relationships vary according to social and technological conditions. Practically, the results suggest that virtual-idol hotel advertisements should align their emotional, creative, informative, and entertaining elements with the particular identity process they are intended to activate.