Did eyes lie? Examining a hygiene message’s dominance in post-pandemic tourism advertising with an eye-tracking monitoring approach

Given that hygiene remains a prominent concern for tourists, this study aims to examine the impact of hygiene-related messages on individual tourists’ attitudes toward tourism advertising. To achieve this objective, Study 1 and Study 2 employed video and print advertisements alongside an eye tracking system to examine the influence of timing and appearance location of hygiene messages. Subsequently, a survey targeting Australian tourists (Study 3) was conducted to explore how process-focused versus outcome-focused thoughts impact attitude toward advertising, with age and risk aversion tested as moderators. Findings from the eye tracking studies show that hygiene messages appearing at the end as compared to the beginning of the video advertising as well as those positioned in the top rather than lower regions of print advertisements, are more effective in capturing attention. Survey results further revealed that process-focused thoughts are more influential in developing attitude than outcome-focused thoughts. A list of implications is discussed at the end.