Compensating the body with biographies: The persuasion code of destination virtual influencers

Travel decisions rely heavily on authentic experiences, yet destination virtual influencers (VI) lack firsthand travel experiences. How consumers accept and evaluate their recommendations remains unclear. This study proposes that identity biographies function as compensatory narrative cues that shape consumers’ perceptions of VI's mental capacities, thereby increasing travel intention. Through a TikTok pretest and three scenario-based experiments, we demonstrate that underdog identity biographies significantly enhance travel intention compared with top-dog biographies. Perceived experience serves as the central underlying mechanism, whereas perceived agency does not exhibit a significant mediating effect. Furthermore, VI type moderates this effect, such that the persuasive advantage of underdog biographies is stronger for animated VI, whereas the difference between underdog and top-dog biographies becomes nonsignificant for human-like VI. This research extends VI studies from examining effectiveness outcomes to explaining how consumers cognitively construct VI as persuasive sources. It reveals the compensatory relationship between narrative and visual cues and provides actionable insights for designing storytelling strategies for destination VI.