۱- Introduction

۲- Literature review and hypothesis development

۳- Research methods

۴- Results

۵- Conclusions

References

Abstract

This study contributes to exploring the effects of regulatory fit with green marketing messages on consumer behavioral intentions by examining the moderating roles of perceived motives of green initiatives and perceived incentive mechanisms. Experiment 1 explores the effects of regulatory fit and non-fit on behavioral intentions in terms of the different types of green marketing messages. Experiment 2 explores the moderating effect of perceived different motives of green initiatives on the link between promotion/prevention regulatory fit and behavioral intentions. Additionally, Experiment 3 examines the moderating effect of perceived different incentive mechanisms on the relationship between promotion/prevention regulatory fit and behavioral intentions. Based on these findings, theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Introduction

Tourism and leisure activities have proliferated and become important parts of modern life. Thus, when consumers engage in tourism and leisure activities on their travel itinerary, hotels make an essential contribution to the overall visitor satisfaction at a particular destination (Presbury et al., 2005). However, because hotel development depends on an abundance of natural resources, an important issue for hotels is to reduce the destruction of the environment while they are operating (Wang, Wang, Wang, Yan and Li, 2018). Therefore, along with rising environmental awareness, increasingly more people care about the problem of environmental degradation, which has caused the hotel industry to become aware that the market is changing dramatically, thus creating “green hotels” (Han et al., 2010). Due to the environmental issue constantly being at the forefront of attention and with the green consumption generation having arrived, enterprises are also actively implementing green marketing in response to market demand (Wang, 2017). Thus, by implementing green marketing and sending messages related to the use of green products, one can make consumers feel the benefits of green consumption (e.g., the impact on social benefits, such as health, environment, and future generations), which can facilitate consumers in moving from intention to action (Litvine and Wüstenhagen, 2011; Wei et al., 2018) and establish their awareness and understanding; they can then benefit the brand through purchasing intentions and brand selection (Ruiz and Sicilia, 2004). Jiang and Kim (2015) have shown that consumers’ interpretation of green marketing messages influences their behavioral intentions toward business. Thus, the use of green marketing messages to facilitate positive consumer behavioral intentions is important when conducting green marketing (Blose et al., 2015; Grazzini et al., 2018) and is an important research focus of the present study. As concluded by Line and Hanks (2016), environmental sustainability is an important issue in the hospitality and tourism industry, and researchers should pay more attention to understanding consumer attitudes, evaluations, and behaviors toward green hotel products and services. Previous studies have suggested that the concept of “regulatory focus theory (RFT)” should be applied in message construction to understand how consumers interpret received messages differently (e.g., Lin, 2011; Hsu and Chen, 2014; Hsu et al., 2017; Zhang et al., 2018).