Is it a disaster once the celebrity endorser for a tourist destination is involved in a controversial scandal? Testing the concept of image‐to‐image influence

Abstract

This study aims to (1) examine whether scandals about the endorsers affect their image (in terms of believability and attractiveness) and (2) compare any difference in the destination image (in terms of cognitive, affective, and conative images) between destinations where their endorsers have and do not have scandals. The research results indicate that having scandals negatively affects endorsers' believability and attractiveness, believability positively affects affective destination image, and attractiveness positively affects cognitive destination image. This study generalizes the concept of image‐to‐image association and provides a research framework to evaluate how endorser image influences destination image in a negative context.