The interaction effect of emotional message appeals and emotions on travel intention

Purpose Although message appeal is often used in destination marketing, the effectiveness of positive and negative message appeals remains unknown. Two online experiments were conducted to answer this research question. Based on the emotion-congruent effect, this study proves that when a customer is in a negative emotional state, advertisements with a negative message appeal increase visit intention, whereas when a customer is in a positive emotional state, advertisements with a positive message appeal increase visit intention. This study aims to identify empathy as the mediator explaining the mechanism underlying the interaction effects. This study not only contributes to destination marketing research by identifying customers’ emotions as a moderating variable in examining the effectiveness of destination advertising message appeals, but also offers practical implications for destination marketers, enabling them to segment their advertising strategies based on customers’ emotions.