Influencer Characteristics and International Travel Intentions: The Sequential Mediating Roles of FOMO and Trust Among Generation Y and Z Social Media Users

Due to the emergence of social media platforms and the expanding role of influencers in digital tourism, this study aims to explore the structural mechanism through which social media influencer characteristics shape international travel intentions. Despite the growing popularity of digital content creators, empirical investigations integrating fear of missing out (FOMO) and trust in influencers within a sequential organismic framework remain lacking in the literature. Therefore, framed by the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) framework, the present study addresses this research gap by evaluating how perceived influencer attributes (expertise, attractiveness, and similarity) influence International Travel Intentions through the mediating roles of FOMO and trust. To achieve the objectives of this study, Primary data were collected from 739 valid responses provided by Algerian Generation Y and Generation Z social media users. Covariance-based structural equation modeling (CB-SEM) was performed using AMOS to test the structural relationships. The empirical findings indicate that influencer characteristics exert a significant positive direct impact on FOMO, trust in influencers, and international travel intentions. Crucially, the results indicate complementary partial mediation and are consistent with the proposed sequential mechanism (Influencer Characteristics → FOMO → Trust → International Travel Intentions). This finding suggests that FOMO is statistically associated with the proposed sequential relationship involving trust and international travel intentions. Destination marketing organizations (DMOs) should partner with domain-expert influencers to combine aspirational storytelling with transparent practical insights. Theoretical and practical contributions are discussed at the end of the paper.