Excited or Calm? Effects of Endorsers’ Emotions on Tourists’ Impulsive Buying

Abstract

Given the significant practical value impulsive buying brings to destinations, it has increasingly become a popular topic in tourist behavior research. However, few studies have examined how practitioners can sway tourists to engage in impulsive buying. This paper explores a possible strategy for practitioners by testing the effect of endorsers’ emotions (excitement vs. calmness) on the tourists’ arousal levels and their subsequent impulsive buying. In three experimental studies (including an actual behavioral study), we show that exciting (vs. calm) endorsement causes tourists to feel more aroused, which results in higher impulsive buying, manifested by unplanned purchases in both restaurants (Study 1) and hotels (Study 3), and actual impulsive purchases of special local products (Study 2). Moreover, the effect disappears when the tourists have a limited (vs. expanded) time horizon. Based on these findings, tourism marketers could choose and train endorsers for their products and services promotion accordingly.