Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Tourism Management Perspectives journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/tmp Reviews in tourism What drives travelers' adoption of user-generated content? A literature review Dandison C. Ukpabi ⁎ , Heikki Karjaluoto Digital Marketing Research Group, University of Jyväskylä, Finland ARTICLEINFO Keywords: Social media User-generated content Tourism Travel Hospitality TAM Adoption Intention ABSTRACT User-generated content (UGC) has become an important part of travel planning, as travelers evaluate travel products based on past reviews. However, different factors account for why tourists utilize UGC. The aim of this study is to review extant studies on UGC to identify the antecedents of UGC utilization for travel planning and the theories, models, and frameworks used in these studies. A total of 54 studies from 2005 to 2016 were found. This study found that UGC adoption is determined by attributes relating to the user, the source, the content, and response variables. It also found distinct and heterogeneous theories and frameworks mainly drawn from the information systems, socio-psychology, and management disciplines. Among the antecedents, the average path coefficients of the extracted relationships show that trust predicted attitude more than the other variables. Implications and future research directions are provided. 1. Introduction Recently, there has been broad interest in social media as an im- portant platform for disseminating information on products and ser- vices (Lu & Stepchenkova, 2015; Yang, 2017). Marketers use social media platforms to share information and attract traffic to their offer- ings (Aluri, Slevitch, & Larzelere, 2015; Culnan, McHugh, & Zubillaga, 2010; Sigala, 2011). Social media platforms have also become equally powerful tools for consumers to use to spread information via word of mouth (WOM). In the tourism and hospitality services industries, user- generated content (UGC) has become an effective tool tourists use to gather information to make travel decisions (Ukpabi & Karjaluoto, 2017a). Tsao, Hsieh, Shih, and Lin (2015) found that approximately 80% of travelers claim to read reviews about a hotel before embarking on a trip, and 53% say that they will not book a hotel that has no reviews. By sharing travel experiences through text, pictures, and vi- deos, users enhance the free information provided for potential tra- velers regarding new markets, new topics, and sensitive issues (Tsao etal.,2015).TheimportanceofUGCintourismandhospitalityservices is underscored by the following considerations: First, tourism is a he- donic experience; therefore, consumers want to make the best travel decisions in order to make the most of the experience, and they seek to dosobyreadingreviewsandcommentsfromfellowconsumers(Rageh, Melewar, & Woodside, 2013). Second, tourism cannot be experienced before consumption; thus, consumers rely on the knowledge and ex- periences of others (Zhang, Ye, Law, & Li, 2010). Finally, reviews from fellow consumers are deemed honest and trustworthy, so consumers rely on them as a dependable source of information for their travel decisions (Cox, Burgess, Sellitto, & Buultjens, 2009; Ukpabi & Karjaluoto, 2017b). Some studies have reviewed existing research on social media in the tourism industry. One of the earliest reviews, by Leung, Law, Hoof, and Buhalis (2013), used content analysis to evaluate studies from 2007 to 2011 and identified two major research streams: consumer-focused and supplier-based. Consumer-focused studies primarily highlighted social mediaascardinalplatformsforthetourist'stripplanningphase,asthey provide the traveler with a huge amount of varied information relevant tothetraveldecision.Interestingly,however,theynotedthattheroleof social media in evaluating alternatives or influencing purchases is rarely studied. As expected, supplier-based studies focused on social media as a marketing, promotion, and research platform. While corroborating the findings of Leung et al. (2013) on the use of social media as an in- formation source during trip planning by consumers and as a marketing tool by suppliers, Zeng and Gerritsen (2014) nevertheless contended that studies relating to social media are still in their infancy, con- sidering the wide-ranging nature of the tourism industry. Thus, while they noted that extant studies had discussed UGC from the perspectives of the consumer, they called for future studies examining the value of UGC as a strategic tool for tourism enterprises. Finally, Lu and Stepchenkova (2015) analyzed extant studies on UGC in tourism with an emphasis on the methodological approaches and software used. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tmp.2018.03.006 Received 4 September 2017; Received in revised form 26 March 2018; Accepted 26 March 2018 ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: dandison.c.ukpabi@jyu.fi (D.C. Ukpabi). Tourism Management Perspectives 28 (2018) 251–273 2211-9736/ © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. T