How does the cuteness of persuasive communication about sustainable tourism shape tourists’ environmentally responsible behavioral intentions?

Xu, Xing’an, Wang, Shijia, Liu, Juan, Wang, Xuan Lorna and Morgan, Nigel (2025) How does the cuteness of persuasive communication about sustainable tourism shape tourists’ environmentally responsible behavioral intentions? Journal of Sustainable Tourism. pp. 1-29. ISSN 0966-9582

Accepted Version File will be available on: 24 September 2026. Available under License Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial. Download (2MB)

Abstract

Sustainable tourism research has primarily investigated the central route to persuasive communication for sustainable tourism while neglecting the peripheral route. Practically, peripheral routes sometimes outperform central ones due to requiring little cognitive effort and producing instantaneous persuasion. Design factors concerning peripheral persuasive communication influence its persuasive effect, but whether cuteness—a common design-related element—serves as a peripheral route to persuasion remains unclear. Therefore, this research employs cuteness as a peripheral cue to explore its role in promoting sustainable tourism through four scenario-based experiments based on the elaboration likelihood model. Findings are as follows: 1) Study 1 reveals that persuasive communication with (vs. without) a cute design (whether kindchenschema or whimsically cute) generates stronger environmentally responsible behavioral intentions; 2) Study 2 identifies a matching effect of cuteness type and destination gender on such intentions (Study 2 A), with further moderation by cute image gender (Study 2B); 3) Study 3 unfolds a matching effect between cuteness type and environmental appeal on such intentions; 4) Cognitive involvement and affective involvement represent psychological mechanisms behind these matching effects (Studies 2 A, 2B, and 3). This research enriches theories of persuasive communication, sustainable tourism, and cuteness while offering tourism managers suggestions for promoting sustainable tourism.