Emotional responses to tourism advertisements: the application of FaceReader™

ABSTRACT

Traditionally, tourists’ emotional responses to advertising and associated stimuli have been assessed using self-report questionnaires. Image recognition software, such as FaceReader™ provides a means to analyse emotional responses to stimuli, specifically the type of emotion, valence (positive/negative) and arousal (intensity) via facial expressions. This research note reports on the benefits and drawbacks of FaceReader™. Respondents from Iran (5) and Australia (5) were invited to a laboratory to watch a tourism advertisement (ski resort in Iran). A video camera was used to record the facial expressions of respondents while viewing the advertisement. Results provide an indication that participants had overall low arousal and positive emotions while watching the tourism video. FaceReader™ proved useful for collecting and analysing real time data concerning seven discrete emotions plus valence and arousal. Since FaceReader™ is sensitive to light and participants with thick frame glasses, it is recommended that future studies apply this software with additional physiological and self-report measures to advance understanding of the measurement of emotions in the tourism field.

KEYWORDS:

• FaceReader™
• emotion
• tourism
• advertisement
• Iran

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Arghavan Hadinejad is a PhD candidate in the Department of Tourism, Sport and Hotel Management at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. She has both industry and academic experience in tourism and destination marketing. Arghavan’s research focus is on cognitive psychology, emotion, attitude, advertisement and destination marketing.

Brent D. Moyle, PhD, is an Associate Dean (Research) at University of the Sunshine Coast, Mid-Career Senior Research Fellow at Advance Queensland, and an Adjunct Fellow at Southern Cross University, Australia. His research primarily focuses on the sustainable management of tourism destinations, application of tourism in health studies, emotion and destination marketing.

Noel Scott, PhD, is Professor of Tourism and Deputy Director at the Griffith Institute for Tourism, Queensland, Australia. He has extensive international tourism experience as a trainer, consultant, guest speaker, advisor and mentor. His research interests lie in tourism marketing; emotion studies and cognitive psychology.

Anna Kralj, PhD, is Undergraduate Program Director at Griffith University, Australia. Anna’s research interests focus on human resource management, service management and attitudinal studies.

ORCID

Noel Scott http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8770-2563