TY - JOUR
T1 - Why and when physical cleanliness increases tourists’ payments under pay-what-you-want pricing
T2 - the mediating role of moral self-regard and the moderating role of regulatory focus
AU - Yang, Bi
AU - Ye, Tian
AU - Hwang, Yoo Hee
AU - Zhao, Yujie
AU - Mattila, Anna S.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
PY - 2024
Y1 - 2024
N2 - The pay-what-you-want pricing scheme has been frequently employed by nonprofit and for-profit tourism organizations. While this voluntary payment format can foster inclusivity by making tourism accessible to a larger population, one urgent challenge these institutions face is how to increase consumer payment to sustain both social and economic sustainability. The present work proposes a novel solution, that is, leveraging consumers’ actual or vicarious experience of physical cleanliness. Through two questionnaires and three experiments, this work demonstrates that physical cleanliness significantly boosts payment magnitude under pay-what-you-want. Importantly, this research identifies consumers’ regulatory focus as a vital boundary condition. Specifically, the positive cleanliness effect occurs among promotion-focused people but disappears among prevention-focused individuals. Besides, this study reveals that moral self-regard is the underlying mechanism driving the positive cleanliness effect. Theoretically, the current study presents a new perspective to understanding determinants of tourists’ voluntary payment decisions by investigating their embodied experience of physical cleanliness. It adds new insights to the sustainable tourism literature by addressing both social and economic sustainability through increased payments under pay-what-you-want pricing. Practically, the research findings provide destination managers and tourism providers with valuable guidance on how to boost people’s voluntary payments.
AB - The pay-what-you-want pricing scheme has been frequently employed by nonprofit and for-profit tourism organizations. While this voluntary payment format can foster inclusivity by making tourism accessible to a larger population, one urgent challenge these institutions face is how to increase consumer payment to sustain both social and economic sustainability. The present work proposes a novel solution, that is, leveraging consumers’ actual or vicarious experience of physical cleanliness. Through two questionnaires and three experiments, this work demonstrates that physical cleanliness significantly boosts payment magnitude under pay-what-you-want. Importantly, this research identifies consumers’ regulatory focus as a vital boundary condition. Specifically, the positive cleanliness effect occurs among promotion-focused people but disappears among prevention-focused individuals. Besides, this study reveals that moral self-regard is the underlying mechanism driving the positive cleanliness effect. Theoretically, the current study presents a new perspective to understanding determinants of tourists’ voluntary payment decisions by investigating their embodied experience of physical cleanliness. It adds new insights to the sustainable tourism literature by addressing both social and economic sustainability through increased payments under pay-what-you-want pricing. Practically, the research findings provide destination managers and tourism providers with valuable guidance on how to boost people’s voluntary payments.
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U2 - 10.1080/09669582.2024.2391906
DO - 10.1080/09669582.2024.2391906
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85201271325
SN - 0966-9582
JO - Journal of Sustainable Tourism
JF - Journal of Sustainable Tourism
ER -