Consumption of pop culture and tourism demand: Through the lens of herding behaviour
通过社交媒体搜索量构建韩流文化消费指数，发现其能显著预测10个国家的赴韩旅游人数，为文化消费提供通用代理指标。
Herding is a social phenomenon where individuals act collectively as part of a group and make decisions based on the behaviour and choices of others. In this study, we conceptualise herding behaviour on social media via a two-step flow communication model and measured through Google and YouTube search volume. The estimated herding behaviour is used to develop a novel index to measure the online consumption of Korean cultural products. Monthly data between 2013 and 2019 were used to analyse tourist arrivals from 10 countries. Findings confirm that Korean wave, captured by the index, is statistically significant in predicting tourist arrivals. The study provides a generalised proxy of cultural consumption, applicable to other destinations.