In darkness we seek light: The impact of focal and general lighting designs on customers’ approach intentions toward restaurants

For many hospitality businesses, environmental lighting design can be a powerful tool to be leveraged to stage the servicescape when creating marketing collateral to attract customers. Addressing this underexplored topic, the current research examines how and why focal and general lighting designs, as presented in the restaurant's ambient images, influence consumers’ approach intentions: namely, the perceptions of attractiveness of the restaurant and their visit intention. Our findings demonstrate that images that present focal lighting (e.g., table lighting) against a generally dimmed dining ambience can effectively boost the restaurant's perceived attractiveness and visit intention among diners who are of high (vs. low) relational intimacy. Moderated-moderated mediation analysis (Hayes, 2018) further reveals that it is ambient intimacy that explains such effects. Theoretical and managerial implications of this research are presented before discussing limitations and future research opportunities.