sustainability Article How Can the Celebrity Endorsement Effect Help Consumer Engagement? A Case of Promoting Tourism Products through Live Streaming Luyi Qiu 1,2 , Xiaohua Chen 3, * and Timothy J. Lee 4,5   Citation: Qiu, L.; Chen, X.; Lee, T.J. How Can the Celebrity Endorsement Effect Help Consumer Engagement? A Case of Promoting Tourism Products through Live Streaming. Sustainability 2021, 13, 8655. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su13158655 Academic Editor: Osman M. Karatepe Received: 23 June 2021 Accepted: 29 July 2021 Published: 3 August 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 Department of International Trade and Economics, Ningbo Polytechnic, Ningbo 315800, China; 0000036@nbpt.edu.cn 2 Business School, Universiti Kuala Lumpur (UniKL), Kuala Lumpur 50250, Malaysia 3 Graduate School of Hotel & Tourism, Kyung Hee University, Seoul 02447, Korea 4 Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST), Macao 999078, China; tjlee@must.edu.mo 5 Griffith Institute for Tourism (GIFT), Griffith Business School, Griffith University, Nathan, QLD 4111, Australia * Correspondence: yidingxing@khu.ac.kr; Tel.: +82-2-961-0863 Abstract: Although much research has been devoted to the study of the impact of celebrity endorse- ments on the effectiveness of advertising in the literature on consumer behavior, few scholars pay attention to applying this concept to explain consumer behavior in the tourism field. This research tested celebrities’ expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness as the antecedents of consumer trust and engagement in the tourism and hospitality context. Specifically, through the analysis of 406 valid responses collected by online questionnaire, this study makes the following conclusions. First, it pro- vides a new perspective on the influence of celebrity effects by focusing on the live-streaming behavior of CEOs on China’s largest online travel agency (OTA) platform. Secondly, it confirms that the three dimensions of the celebrity effect (expertise, trustworthiness, and attractiveness) positively affect the three dimensions of consumer trust (ability, benevolence, and integrity). At the same time, consumer trust can also predict the three dimensions of consumer engagement (cognitive processing, affection, and activation). In addition, the three dimensions of consumer trust also play a positive mediating role between the relationship of celebrity effects and consumer engagement. That is, the celebrity effects have a positive and indirect influence on consumer engagement. Therefore, by suggesting that celebrity endorsements can create consumer trust and engagement in the OTA platform, this research expands the research framework of celebrity endorsement credibility theory. Keywords: celebrity endorsement effects; consumer trust; benevolence; integrity; cognitive process- ing of engagement; activation of engagement 1. Introduction Consumer trust is the core of the consumer relationship that directly promotes con- sumer engagement [1] and purchase behavior [2]. Consumer trust is gradually formed in constant interaction between consumers and the brand [3]. In the transaction process, com- pared to the sellers or producers, consumers have a relatively low degree of understanding of a brand, which leads to risk when they buy goods [4]. Thus, consumer trust reflects their expectations of the behavior of the trading platform [5]. Hence, the purpose of many companies’ marketing strategies is to build customer trust or increase their engagement [1]. Celebrity endorsement has significant and practical effects in the advertising and marketing field [6]. Studies have demonstrated that celebrity effects enhance brand- consumer trust [7] or help in achieving a positive brand image [3], which have also been identified as playing essential roles in tourism marketing. This can also be explained by the trust transfer theory [8]. Generally, consumers initially lack trust in a trading platform Sustainability 2021, 13, 8655. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13158655 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability