Does awe facilitate conformity in tourism consumption? Evidence from China

ABSTRACT

Although conformity is frequently used to increase the appeal of popular tourism products, research on the drivers of tourist conformity is limited. Using laboratory experiments conducted in China, we demonstrate that the emotion of awe, which is often experienced while traveling but seldom investigated in the tourism literature, may have a novel influence on tourist conformity that has been overlooked so far. We conducted three studies using different manipulation methods and tourism purchase scenarios to provide convergent evidence that participants who experience awe (vs. neutral states) prefer majority-endorsed tourism-related products over minority-endorsed ones. Moreover, the effect of awe on conformity is partly mediated by social connectedness. Our findings shed light on the emotional determinants of tourist conformity, enrich research on the consequences of awe, and have useful managerial implications for tourism practices in terms of guiding consumer conformity by managing tourists’ emotional experiences.

摘要：旅游产品营销实践中经常会利用消费者的从众心理促进销售，然而理论领域关于旅游从众消费影响因素的研究非常有限。本文聚焦于旅游者经常体验的一种情绪---敬畏，具体研究敬畏情绪对旅游从众消费的潜在影响。通过面向中国消费者的三个实验，研究发现，激发敬畏情绪（相对于中立情绪）的被试更偏好大众认可（相对于小众认可）的旅游产品和服务，其中社会联结有效解释了敬畏对旅游从众消费的积极效应。研究结论揭示了旅游从众消费的情感影响因素，拓展了敬畏情绪的研究领域，并为旅游营销实践中如何采用情绪手段引导从众消费提供了理论参考。

KEYWORDS:

• Awe
• conformity
• emotion
• social connectedness
• tourism consumption
• majority-endorsed

关键词:

• 敬畏
• 从众
• 情感
• 社会联结
• 旅游消费
• 大众认可

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 71772064].