Impact of awe on sustainable tourism consumption decisions: roles of diminished self-importance and regulatory focus

Awe has been proved to have positive effects on pro-environmental behaviours. Although awe-arousing tourist experience and its impact on post-travel environmental propensities have been studied, it remains unknown whether and how awe primed outside of tourism context could influence tourism-based consumption. Acknowledging that tourists may contribute more to sustainable development if suppliers/marketers help them by manipulating decision-making situations, this research aims to analyse awe potential tourists experienced in decision-making process and its impact on their sustainable tourism consumption decisions. Small self and regulatory focus regarding the ways of cognising and appraising self and information were adopted to conceptualise the cognitive mechanism for accommodation to need of external grand entity (nature). Three experiments verified that awe promoted sustainable tourism consumption decisions through intensifying the sense of small self; awe’s causality and such mediation effect were stronger among individuals adopting prevention focus than those with promotion focus. Additionally, the main effect was compared between groups of high vs. low levels of small self. Spotlight analysis showed that the direct effect of awe on sustainable tourism decisions was attenuated when small self was relatively low. Findings extend knowledge of connections between awe and tourist behaviours and provide implications for sustainable tourism marketing.