Communicating regenerative tourism: effects of message format and framing on attention, interpretation and well-being expectations
Lariza Corral-Gonzalez, Francisco Rejón-Guardia, Josefa García-Mestanza, Judith Cavazos-ArroyoPurpose
The present study examines how different communication strategies influence how individuals attend to and make sense of regenerative tourism as an emerging and relatively unfamiliar tourism paradigm, focusing on the effects of message format and framing on attention, sensemaking and anticipated well-being.
Design/methodology/approach
A 2 × 2 between-subjects fully experimental design (n = 136) was employed, using eye-tracking to capture attentional engagement, galvanic skin response (GSR) to measure physiological activation, self-reports of expected well-being and qualitative responses to assess interpretation.
Findings
Emotional narratives elicited greater visual attention and higher expectations of well-being than rational formats, with qualitative findings suggesting that emotional messages tend to facilitate sensemaking through more personally meaningful interpretations. Message framing showed limited direct effects but interacted with format to shape attention to key message elements.
Practical implications
The findings highlight the importance of communication design in promoting emerging tourism concepts, indicating that emotional messages can enhance engagement, support sensemaking and strengthen perceived experiential value. Destination marketers and tourism organisations can use these insights to design more effective communication strategies for novel sustainability-oriented tourism offerings.
Originality/value
The results provide insights into how individuals make sense of unfamiliar tourism concepts, demonstrating the role of message design in shaping early-stage engagement and interpretation. By integrating psychophysiological measures with qualitative analysis, this study offers a process-oriented and comprehensive view of how communication design influences both attention and sensemaking in fairly novel tourism contexts.