Tourist activities may harm the environment, making tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior particularly important in tourism research. This research investigates the persuasion effect of message framing in environmental protection reminders on environmentally responsible behavior. Through five studies employing both field and controlled experiments and different measures of environmentally responsible behavior across varied tourism scenarios, we demonstrate that negatively (vs. positively) framed messages more effectively increase environmentally responsible behavior. Specifically, negatively framed messages are more effective in enhancing tourists’ environmental awareness, which triggers more environmentally responsible behavior. Furthermore, we identify social class as a moderator of message framing effectiveness, showing that negatively framed messages are more persuasive for lower-class tourists, whereas positively framed messages are more persuasive for upper-class tourists. These findings advance knowledge on message framing and tourists’ environmentally responsible behavior, reconcile prior research, and offer practical guidance for destinations to encourage environmentally responsible behavior among tourists.

Drawing on moral disengagement theory, this research examines how service provider type shapes tourists' pro-environmental behavior. Across five studies including four scenario-based experiments and a field experiment, we show that AI service agents, compared with human service providers, tend to reduce tourists' pro-environmental intentions and behaviors. Moral disengagement serves as the psychological mechanism underlying this effect, such that AI service agents increase tourists' moral disengagement, which in turn weakens their pro-environmental behavior. We further show that childlike anthropomorphism attenuates this process by reducing moral disengagement: with childlike anthropomorphic AI tourists’ pro-environmental responses are comparable to their responses to human service providers. These findings advance research on AI service agents, moral disengagement, and AI anthropomorphism in tourism and offer practical insights for aligning AI service development with sustainable tourism goals.

Sensory cues have been increasingly applied to tourism advertising marketing. However, when and how to use the five sensory experiences to enhance advertising effectiveness remains unclear. Drawing on construal level theory and mental simulation theory, this study investigates how the interaction between sensory experiences (proximal vs. distal) and advertising language (concrete vs. abstract) influences the effectiveness of online tourism advertising. Through a pilot study, three online experiments, and a field experiment with actual liking behavior measurements, we confirmed the effectiveness of online tourism advertising depends largely on the match between sensory experiences and advertising language. Specifically, proximal sensory experiences with concrete language descriptions could elicit the vividness of mental simulation, whereas distal sensory experiences with abstract language descriptions could elicit metaphor of mental simulation; both approaches enhance the persuasive effect of tourism advertising. These results offer new perspectives on tourism sensory marketing and have important implications for enhancing the effectiveness of advertisements.

As tourism short videos have become central to destination marketing, camera zoom motion stands out as a simple yet powerful tool. However, theory-driven guidance on when and how to deploy zoom effects remains limited. Drawing on construal level theory, this research examines how zoom motions (zoom-in vs. zoom-out) interact with visual content to affect tourists’ responses. Five main studies across eastern and western cultures demonstrate significant interaction effects between zoom motion and visual content. Specifically, for activity-centric content, zoom-in motion enhances persuasiveness by eliciting objective mental imagery; for site-centric content, zoom-out motion proves more effective, as it evokes feelings-based mental imagery. These findings enrich the theoretical discourse on destination visual marketing and provide actionable recommendations for destination marketing organizations and content creators to optimize the persuasive impact of tourism short videos.

Tourism is fundamentally a consumption of places, making place elements essential in destination marketing. This research investigates the emerging practice of using dialect elements in destination advertising through the theoretical lens of symbolic interactionism, focusing on advertising memory as a key measure of advertising effectiveness. Five main studies (and three supplemental studies) across Eastern and Western cultures demonstrate a robust memory effect of destination advertising with dialect elements. Specifically, such advertising enhances perceived placeness compared to counterparts using the corresponding standard language, thereby resulting in superior memory effectiveness. Furthermore, these effects are attenuated for destinations low in cultural symbolism. These findings advance current knowledge on destination dialect marketing while offering practical guidance to design memorable destination advertising.

With environmental protection gaining traction, prompting tourists to undertake pro-environmental behavior via self-guidance (vs. compliance with rules) merits attention. This research explored how different tourism activities influence tourists' pro-environmental behaviors by arousing distinctive emotions and cognition. Six scenario-based experiments revealed that unthreatened awe and threatened awe can each promote such behaviors. Relaxing tourism activities promote pro-environmental behaviors by awakening a stronger sense of unthreatened awe and self-enhancement; challenging tourism activities foster these behaviors by invoking a greater sense of threatened awe and self-protection. In addition, when a tourist's sense of power is high, a relaxing tourism activity path plays a role: it positively influences pro-environmental behavior through unthreatened awe and self-enhancement. Conversely, when a tourist's sense of power is low, a challenging tourism activity path is pertinent: threatened awe and self-protection act as serial mediators. These findings provide theoretical insights for destination managers to improve locations' environments.

Drawing on the crisis life cycle theory, this research examines the change patterns in tourist' perceptions across the different stages of a destination crisis regarding a destination crisis event strength and likelihood of boycotting in response. The moderating effects of destination crisis event type and crisis response strategy were examined. The findings suggest the strength of tourists' perception and interest in boycotting over the course of crisis follows a predictable inverted U-shape, a result that is robust to different crisis types. The result was also robust to both the apology and compensation response strategies. For both types the impact of the strategies did not differ significantly in the chronic crisis and crisis resolution stages. These findings indicate that destination crisis event managers should safeguard the interests of tourists and the sustainable development of the tourism industry by choosing response strategies according to the nature and cause of the crisis event.

Despite the assumed link between tourism and creativity, research remains limited, and findings are inconsistent. This study draws on trait activation theory and broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions to propose a theoretical model that explores how environmental novelty influences tourist creativity. We argue that environmental novelty evokes interest, fostering cognitive flexibility and enhancing creativity. The presentation style of destination inform (statements or questions) impacts cognitive stimulation and creativity. We conducted a field quasi-experiment and four scenario-based experiments and found that a novel environment enhances the flexibility dimension of creativity, but not originality, through interest and cognitive flexibility. In addition, presenting information in a question style sparks cognitive stimulation and increases originality. The results provide valuable implications for tourists seeking to enhance creativity and for destination management organizations developing novel travel experiences that incorporate thought-provoking questions into their information presentation.

Travel experience sharing contributes to post-trip well-being, but whether and how different sharing types affect different dimensions of well-being is unclear. Applying self-determination theory, this research found that the interaction between social platform types and travel experience sharing resulted in different dimensions of post-trip well-being. The results further revealed two mediating pathways (i.e., personal development and social reputation) behind this matching effect. Specifically, in strong-tie social platforms, desirability (vs. feasibility) sharing induced higher eudaimonia through enhanced personal development, whereas in weak-tie social platforms, feasibility (vs. desirability) sharing induced higher hedonia through enhanced social reputation. This research provides a positive psychological research direction for existing literature on the effects of travel experience sharing. It provides managerial insights for effectively enhancing post-trip well-being.

PurposeNostalgic advertising holds strategic implications for the development of the hospitality and tourism sector. According to self-congruity theory, this research aims to examine the interplay of advertising appeal and temporal perspective on advertising effectiveness.Design/methodology/approachEvidence from three studies, using diverse temporal perspective manipulations across the context of restaurant, hotel and tourist destination, demonstrates that the congruence between advertising appeal (nostalgic vs non-nostalgic) and temporal perspective (cyclical vs linear) generates better advertising effectiveness, as mediated by different temporal selves.FindingsThe results show that for tourists with a cyclical temporal perspective, nostalgic advertising exerts stronger advertising effectiveness via increasing desire to connect with the past. Whereas for tourists with a linear temporal perspective, non-nostalgic advertising exerts stronger advertising effectiveness by increasing desire to connect with the future.Practical implicationsThis research contributes to the literature on temporal perspective and nostalgic tourism. It offers practical insights for marketers into crafting targeted nostalgic advertising strategies by activating temporal perspectives with appropriate thematic and sensory cues.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors' knowledge, this research is the first to simultaneously explore the impact of nostalgic advertising and temporal perspective on advertising effectiveness, providing a novel explanation for previous contradictory findings on nostalgic advertising.

Based on hedonic adaptation theory, this research explores how travel frequency impacts emotional numbness. Across one pilot study and five studies using secondary data and experimental data, we find travel frequency has an inverted U-shaped effect on emotional intensity. That is tourists' emotional intensity at first rises and then falls as travel frequency increases. It introduces tourist expertise as a measurable resource and demonstrates that it plays a mediating role in this effect. Furthermore, mystery can moderate these effects. Specifically, high mystery can alleviate emotional numbness caused by excessive travel frequency. These new findings offer valuable insights for tourism professionals aiming to create effective service strategies that improve tourist emotions.

Traveling with companions is commonplace, yet the effect of travel companions on tourists' well-being remains disputed, warranting further investigation. Drawing on social facilitation theory, this study investigates the interaction effect of self-construal (independent vs. interdependent) and companion presence (alone vs. with a companion) on tourists' positive affect and well-being. Evidence from four studies, using various self-construal manipulations and tourism activities, reveals that tourists with interdependent self-construal derive higher hedonia when traveling with a companion, whereas tourists with independent self-construal gain higher eudaimonia when traveling alone. Additionally, this interaction effect is mediated by two distinct dimensions of positive affect: pleasant affect (a low-arousal state) and positive involvement (a high-arousal state), respectively. These findings advance the understanding of how self-construal and companion presence influence hedonia and eudaimonia. Tourism managers can utilize these findings to tailor travel products, messaging strategies, and service experiences according to whether tourists travel alone or with a companion.

Speed variation has proven effective in tourism video marketing; however, not all speed-varied advertisements yield positive results. The conditions and mechanisms under which they enhance effectiveness and drive visit intentions remain unclear. This research investigates how presentation speed and activity type in tourism video advertisements interact to influence tourist responses. Through four studies, including secondary data analysis and controlled experiments, the results reveal a significant interaction effect between video speed and activity type. Specifically, for relaxing activities, slow-paced presentations are more effective in boosting visit intentions than fast-paced ones, with this effect mediated by peacefulness. In contrast, for challenging activities, fast-paced presentations are more effective in driving visit intentions, with excitement serving as the mediating factor. These findings contribute to the literature on tourism video marketing, speed marketing research, and positive emotions at varying arousal levels, offering practical guidance for marketers to create more impactful and targeted tourism video advertisements.

In four experiments (N = 729), this research found that the service provider's smile intensity and tourism activity type interacted to predict revisit intention, and this effect was explained by social judgments of the service provider. Specifically, for scenarios depicting relaxing activities, broad smiles were more likely than slight smiles to enhance perceptions of the service provider as warm, and in turn, to increase revisit intention. In contrast, for challenging activities, slight smiles were more likely than broad smiles to enhance perceptions of the service provider as competent, and in turn, to increase revisit intention. These novel findings contribute to the research literature on tourism service marketing and have practical implications for destination marketers to enhance tourists' revisit intention.

Prior research has demonstrated that negative online reviews have a greater impact than positive online reviews on tourists' purchase decisions. However, building on the construal level theory, this study proposes a new perspective, suggesting that positive online reviews are more influential in distant-future trips, and negative online reviews are more influential in near-future trips. These effects (i) occur because tourists generate experiences of processing fluency from a construal fit between the construal level of reviews with different valence and the temporal distance of tourists' trips, and (ii) are significant for tourists who are reading reviews on large screen devices, but not for those using small screen devices. This study demonstrates the importance of temporal distance in eliminating the robust negativity bias, offering novel insight into existing research on persuasion. These findings provide new references for tourism enterprises managing the detrimental effects of negative online reviews in multi-screen times.

Creativity has emerged as a significant outcome in tourism benefits literature. However, existing research has yet to explore the impact of travel sharing, an increasingly popular and ubiquitous aspect of tourism, on individual creativity. Drawing on constructive-developmental theory, this study examines how different types of travel sharing (desirability vs. feasibility) influence individual creativity in everyday life. Five studies revealed that desirability sharing, compared to sharing focused on feasibility, is more effective in stimulating individual creativity. Additionally, the research suggests that clarity of self-concept and self-efficacy act as sequential mediators in this relationship while sharing motivation plays a moderating role. Bridging the world of tourism and everyday life, our study contributes to the literature on travel sharing and creativity, providing valuable insights for both tourists and marketers on leveraging the strategies of travel sharing to promote creativity.

Based on social information processing theory and need-to-belong theory, an online survey and four experiments were conducted in an effort to better understand how organizational interpersonal climate affects the organizational sense of belonging, occupational well-being, and organizational citizenship behaviors of tourism practitioners. A tight organizational interpersonal climate had a greater positive impact on the organizational sense of belonging and occupational well-being of tourism practitioners, when compared to a loose climate condition. Occupational well-being had a positive impact on organizational citizenship behaviors, with sense of belonging acting to partially mediate the organizational interpersonal climate on occupational well-being relationship. Organizational sense of belonging and occupational well-being mediated the interpersonal climate on citizenship behaviors relationship. Workgroup size was found to moderate the relationship between organizational interpersonal climate, organizational sense of belonging, and occupational well-being. Theoretical and practical implications of the findings are discussed.

The temporal distance between purchase time and departure time is inherent within travel purchase decisions. Construal level theory suggests that construal congruence between various dimensions of psychological distance leads to positive effects. Hence, this study explored whether the spatial distance between tourists and their companions in the pre-trip phase impacts temporal distance in travel purchase decisions. We tested a theoretical model that contained spatial distance between tourists and their companions, imagery vividness, temporal distance in travel purchase decisions, and product presentation by five studies. Findings revealed that spatially distant (vs. near) companions encourage tourists to purchase more distant-future (vs. near-future) tourism products. Additionally, spatial distance transforms to temporal distance in travel purchase decisions via imagery vividness, and this effect is more pronounced in abstract presentations than in concrete presentations.

Guided by interaction ritual chains theory, this research assesses the relationship of ritualized host-tourist interactions on sense of belonging and storytelling intentions, using group size (small vs. moderate vs. large) as a moderating variable. Three studies were conducted using different ritual contexts (i.e. tea, bonfire, wedding). Findings suggested that the intensity of host-tourist interactions (strong vs. weak) impacts tourists' sense of belonging and storytelling intentions. The research also found that sense of belonging mediates, while group size moderates, the relationship of ritualized host-tourist interaction with storytelling intentions. When group size was moderate (small, large), the impact of strong ritualized host-tourist interactions was greater (not significantly different), relative to weak interaction conditions. Theoretical and practical takeaways are provided.