The present study was conducted in the context of the political tensions between Turkey and Israel. The main objective of the present research note is to examine the relationship between consumer animosity and sociallyvisible consumption; although two salient constructs in the consumer behaviour stream of research, the relationship between them has not been examined in previous research. The mall-intercept method was employed to collect data from a sample of 208 respondents. SPSS’s AMOS software was employed to test the construct validity of the scale items. Pearson correlations and independent sample T-tests were conducted to explore the relationships between the study variables. Results suggest that the relationships between socially visible consumption and consumer animosity is moderated by travellers’ willingness to holiday in a socially visible fashion. Future research should focus on other potential moderators of the relationship between animosity and tourism behaviour such as risk perception.

Introduction

A growing number of studies have explored the effects of consumer animosity on tourism behaviour (Chen, Lin, & Petrick, 2013, 2016; Stepchenkova, Shichkova, Kim, & Rykhtik, 2017, 2018). Klein, Ettenson, and Morris (1998) pioneered the study of consumer animosity with the introduction of the Animosity Model of Foreign Product Purchase; furthermore, Klein et al. (1998) defined animosity as “anger related to previous or ongoing political, military, economic, or diplomatic events” (p. 90). While the overwhelming majority of research investigating consumer animosity has focused on the effects of animosity on physical products (Heinberg, 2017), relatively few studies in the field of tourism management have examined the effect of animosity on destination choice (Sánchez, Campo, & Alvarez, 2018). Exploring the possible impact of animosity and destination choice is especially pertinent as tourism plays a pivotal role in international reconciliation (Farmaki, 2017). The current study was conducted in the context of the political tensions between Turkey and Israel. The number of Israeli travellers choosing Turkey as a holiday destination significantly dropped following the 2010 MV Mavi Marmara incident. In the aftermath of the incident, the number of Israelis travelling to Turkey decreased from 650,000 to 100,000 (Fisher, 2015). The present research note attempts to contribute to the tourism literature by examining the relationships between the critical variables of conceptualizing tourist behaviour: Consumer animosity, susceptibility to visible consumption, susceptibility to norm influence, willingness to learn about the local culture, and willingness to visit a holiday destination. This research note also aims to make practical contributions to the field of tourism by deriving implications critical to the business aspect of tourism marketing. Previous research demonstrates the importance of learning about the local culture during the tourism experience (Poria, Butler, & Airey, 2003). Since animosity is characterized by a hostile attitude aimed at national out-groups (Jung, Ang, Leong, Tan, & Pompitakpan, 2002), we argue that consumer animosity is not only likely to be associated with a lowered willingness to visit a targeted holiday destination but also a lowered willingness to learn about the Turkish culture. Socially visible consumption (henceforth referred to as SVC) refers to consumption in public; that is, consumption observable to others (Josiassen & Assaf, 2013). Although very few past studies focused on the role of SVC in the context of tourist behaviour, they suggest that consumer animosity is negatively associated with SVC (Josiassen & Assaf, 2013). Thus, we argue that animosity will deter Israeli tourists from posting photos on social platforms during their visit and sharing their experience with friends upon their return to Israel. Since “publicly self-conscious individuals are motivated to observe, note, and assimilate in their own SVC the consumption tastes of significant others” (Millan & Mittal, 2017, p. 313), it stands to reason that the more travellers’ are susceptible to norm influence (henceforth referred to as SNI), the less likely they are to consume their holiday to Turkey in a socially visible fashion. As such, we posit the following hypotheses: H1. Animosity will be negatively associated with Israeli travellers’ willingness to visit Turkey. H2. Animosity will be negatively associated with Israeli travellers’ willingness to learn about the Turkish culture. H3. Animosity will be negatively associated with Israeli travellers’ SVC of their holiday in Turkey. H4. Travellers’ willingness to engage in SVC will be negatively associated with their SNI.