Media-induced tourism, which involves visits to place associate with films, television programs, and literature, has become a growing phenomenon, and theses research has proliferated in recent decades. Nevertheless, there is a lack of cross-disciplinary academic investigation into audiences' psychological processing on offline tourism. This study attempted to investigate the extent to which audience involvement with K-drama affects self-congruity and destination satisfaction. Specifically, The relationships and intervening mechanisms between audience involvement, self-congruity on K-drama, and tourist attitudes on destination(self-congruity on destination and destination satisfaction) were examined based on parasocial interaction theory and balance theory. Structural equation modeling (SEM) using partial least squares (PLS) via SmartPLS 3.0 was employed for analysis of the survey data(a sample of 447 respondents), using the 5000 bootstrap-samples procedure. The study identified 'self-congruity on K-drama' as significant mediators in predicting 'self-congruity on destination' and 'destination satisfaction'. The findings contribute to an improved understanding of how audience involvement affects tourist attitude on destination and the extent to which self-congruity on K-drama mediates the relationship. Practical implications of using film or culture contents for marketing are drawn from the findings of our study.

Audience Involvement, film tourism, Parasocial Interaction Theory, Balance Theory, Self-Congruity, Destination Satisfaction