Application of Construal-Level Theory to Promotional Strategies in the Hotel Industry

Abstract

Effectively promoting products and services is important for the success of tourism companies in the competitive business environment. Based on construal level theory, this study examines whether psychological distance (temporal and spatial) influences preferred promotional messages in the tourism industry. The results from three experimental studies indicate that people who plan a vacation in the distant-future/to a far-destination prefer abstract promotional messages, while those who plan in the near-future/to a near-destination prefer concrete ones. We also find that informational media (textual vs. pictorial) have significant influences regarding the impact of psychological distance on travelers’ preferred promotional information. Further, using a field study, we investigate whether the current advertisements produced by tourism organizations are properly designed to be congruent with spatially driven construal levels (e.g., concrete promotional information for a near destination) but find them incongruent with what this study suggests. Implications of the findings are discussed for both researchers and practitioners.

Keywords

construal-level theory psychological distance promotional message hotel industry

Introduction

In the current information era, in which consumers have instant access to a variety of information sources, marketers need to develop quality promotional content that end-users will not skim over. Tourism, in particular, has been a well-known information-intense industry (cf. Sheldon 1997), and further sophistication is required for tourism organizations in developing promotional messages to attract travelers’ attention in the prepurchase stage (Filieri and McLeay 2014; Mathies, Gudergan, and Wang 2013; Michaelidou et al. 2013). Although travelers’ information search process has been considered a key research area by tourism scholars (e.g., Choi et al. 2012; Fodness and Murray 1999; Gardiner, King, and Grace 2013; Jun, Vogt, and MacKay 2007), few research efforts have been made to examine how tourism organizations such as hotels can effectively design quality promotional content to appeal to travelers.

Construal-level theory (CLT) suggests that people’s preferences and evaluations of objects or events are influenced by psychological distance, which is a perceived distance in terms of temporal, spatial, and social dimensions (Trope and Liberman 2003). Trope, Liberman, and Wakslak (2007) argue that people have high-level construals regarding distant-future events, whereas they have low-level construals regarding near-future events. Consistent with previous marketing and psychology studies (e.g., Keh and Pang 2010; Miao and Mattila 2013), we focus on the temporal and spatial dimensions of psychological distance in this study.

Although there have been studies that examine psychological distance for residents versus nonresidents or domestic versus international tourists in the tourism literature (Walmsley and Jenkins 1992; Young 1999), no empirical research has been conducted on the impact of psychological distance on travelers’ accommodation selection or evaluation based on different levels of information abstractness in promotional messages. The main contribution of this study will be to verify whether customizing promotional content and format matters for a particular target audience in terms of psychological distance. This research extends our existing knowledge by examining the impact of construal level on hotel or lodging selection or evaluation, as well as the impact of construal level on different levels of information abstractness.

From a more fine-grained perspective, the purpose of this study is fourfold: First, we examine whether temporal distance (near vs. distant) influences travelers’ preferred promotional information (abstract vs. concrete)—Study 1. Similarly, we also investigate whether spatial distance (near vs. far) influences travelers’ preferred promotional information (abstract vs. concrete)—Study 2. Then, we examine whether the informational medium (textual vs. pictorial) influences the impact of psychological distance (temporal and spatial) on travelers’ preferred promotional information—Study 3. Lastly, using a field study, we investigate whether the current advertisements produced by tourism organizations are properly designed with the more relevant information proposed by this study (e.g., abstract promotional message for a far destination)—Study 4.

Literature Review and Hypotheses

Travelers’ Information Search and Designing Promotional Information

Travelers, like other consumers, search product/service information to make purchase decisions for their travel among various options for transportation, accommodations, meals, and so forth. Fodness and Murray (1999) depict travelers’ information searches as a “dynamic process in which individuals use various amounts and types of information sources in response to internal and external contingencies to facilitate travel planning” (p. 220). Generally, there are two categories of information searches for consumers, including internal searches—recall for previous experiences and knowledge in the memory—and external searches—further investigation conducted when an internal search fails to provide sufficient and relevant information (Bettman 1979; Engel, Blackwell, and Miniard 1978; Hawkins Best, and Coney 2000).

Unlike travel consumers in the past, who usually relied on assistance from others (e.g., travel agents) in their external searches, individual travelers nowadays independently search external information easily on the Internet, which is one of the most convenient and preferred information search methods for their travel (Buhalis and Law 2008). Therefore, travel consumers are less likely to rely solely on internal information searches and are more likely to engage in external information searches for better options. Accordingly, tourism sector businesses such as hotels, destination marketing organizations, and visitor and convention bureaus need to develop effective promotional strategies in this information era when consumers have instant access to a variety of information sources (Peterson and Lambert 2003; Yucelt and Marcella 1996).

A recent study by Choi et al. (2012) showed that it is in the prepurchase stage that travelers predominantly rely on various information sources available, either online or offline, to make purchase decisions. The suggestion for tourism marketers to design effective promotional information is not without precedent (Jun and Holland 2012; Mathies, Gudergan, and Wang 2013; Michaelidou et al. 2013). According to Kotler, Bowen, and Makens (2010), effective promotional messages can be developed by understanding the target audience and customizing the message content and format for that audience. Thus, the following sections delineate the concept of psychological distance and its influences on preferred information content and format to extend our current understanding of how promotional messages should be tailored.

Emerging research also indicates that the psychological processes employed by potential travelers during the prepurchase stage are more complex than previously believed (Dellaert, Arentze, and Horeni 2014). That is, such psychological processes involve mental representations of decision variables and attributes (D-A), of attributes and benefits (A-B), and of situational variables and benefits (S-B) (Dellaert, Arentze, and Horeni 2014). These psychological processes are influenced heavily by the consumer’s perceptions of what the destination consists of (Pearce 2014), and its brand identity (Campelo et al. 2014). Such destination perceptions, as well as brand perceptions, are shaped through advertising, which gives way to the discussions in the following section.

Impact of Psychological Distance on Preferred Information

Construal-level theory (CLT) posits that the psychological distances of events, tasks, and objects influence the way people construe them in their minds (Trope and Liberman 2010). Psychological distance is defined as “a subjective experience that something is close or far away from the self, here, and now” (Trope and Liberman 2010, p. 440). The determinants of psychological distance include social, temporal, and geographical distance and hypotheticality (Trope and Liberman 2010). According to CLT, when representing psychologically near events, individuals use low-level and concrete construals, whereas high-level and abstract construals are used when representing psychologically distant events. Researchers have suggested that the characteristics of high-level construals are abstract, general, structured, superordinate, and decontextualized, as compared to those of low-level construals containing concrete, unstructured, subordinate, incidental, and contextual features (Liberman and Trope 1998; Trope and Liberman 2000, 2010). For example, travel could be construed as “freedom from routine,” representing an abstract and high-level construal, or it could also be construed as “buying an airline ticket” or “booking an accommodation,” representing a concrete and low-level construal.

Researchers have found that the ways people construe events have a significant influence on their decision making and evaluation. For example, Liberman and Trope (1998) asked participants to choose one option between possibilities with high desirability/low feasibility (e.g., an interesting/inconvenient lecture) and with low desirability/high feasibility (e.g., an uninteresting/convenient lecture) under different temporal frames. They found that the distant-future participants preferred the desirable option (e.g., an interesting/inconvenient lecture), whereas the near-future participants chose the feasible option (e.g., the uninteresting/convenient lecture). Similarly, Sagristano, Trope, and Liberman (2002) asked participants to choose one option from a set of bets that varied in their expected value and probability of winning. They found that the participants preferred the option with a high probability of winning under the near-future condition. In contrast, they preferred the option with a high payoff under the distant-future condition. Furthermore, spatial construal also influences people’s judgments regarding events or objects. Specifically, people tend to have high-level construals regarding far-destination events or objects. In contrast, they tend to have low-level construals regarding near-destination events or objects.

Construal level has been shown to influence consumers’ evaluations in various situations. Fujita et al. (2008) demonstrated the influence of construal level on consumers’ evaluations of arguments endorsing a product. The results showed that consumers considering a product purchase in the far future (vs. one in the near future) reported more favorable evaluations when the argument speaks to primary and high-level features (vs. secondary and low-level features) relative to secondary and low-level features (vs. primary and high-level features). Martin, Gnoth, and Strong (2009) showed that when a temporal construal prime is placed in an ad, it influences the advertisement evaluation in the interaction with an individual’s temporal orientation and product attribute importance. This finding suggests that the temporal congruency between individuals’ chronic temporal orientation and the situational temporal construal primed in an advertisement leads to better evaluations of the advertisement. Kim, Rao, and Lee (2008) examined the effect of construal level on effective message appeals in a voting context. The findings showed that individuals’ evaluations of a candidate were enhanced when the temporal distance and the abstractness of the message were matched and congruent.

Although travel distance is considered a key issue in the travel literature (e.g., Becken and Schiff 2011; Bojanic and Warnick 2012), a limited number of studies are available in the travel context to test the impact of psychological distance on preferred promotional information. For example, in their case study in Australia, Walmsley and Jenkins (1992) posit that tourists (i.e., nonresidents) tend to employ fewer features (cf. abstract) when perceiving destination attractions, compared to their resident counterparts. Likewise, Young (1999) also reports that international nature-based tourists are more likely to retain the abstract features of a destination than their domestic counterparts, who are more likely to possess detailed/concrete information regarding the features of the destination.

In the current study, we employ construal-level theory to examine effective hotel information while manipulating the psychological distance of the hotel. The psychological distance particularly emphasized in this study is the temporal distance of traveling time and spatial distance to the hotel location. In addition, we vary the abstractness of the hotel information. On the basis of CLT, we propose that the effect of a persuasive message is greatest when the promotional messages in hotel information are congruent with the temporally and spatially driven construal level. Specifically, when the hotel information emphasizes abstract and global features and benefits, individuals whose travel time and current location are distant will positively evaluate the hotel. On the other hand, if the travel times and distance are close to here and now, we expect more favorable evaluations toward the hotel when highlighting concrete and specific features of the hotel information. Formally, we hypothesize:

Hypothesis 1: Temporal construal will influence the evaluation of differently described hotel information. Specifically, when traveling time is in the relatively near future, people will prefer a concretely described hotel to an abstractly described hotel. On the other hand, when traveling time is in the relatively far future, people will prefer an abstractly described hotel to a concretely described hotel.

Hypothesis 2: Spatial construal will influence the evaluation of differently described hotel information. Specifically, when traveling place is for a relatively near destination, people will prefer a concretely described hotel to an abstractly described hotel. On the other hand, when traveling place is for a relatively far destination, people will prefer an abstractly described hotel to a concretely described hotel.

Different Medium Effects: Textual versus Pictorial

Promotional information can be delivered verbally or visually. Researchers have suggested that the information medium is also important in understanding the influence of construal level (Trope and Liberman 2010). For example, when advertising a hotel or providing hotel information to customers, sometimes hotel information is based on verbal presentation. On other occasions, pictorial information is also very commonly used in promotional media, such as advertisements, websites, and brochures. Therefore, it is important to investigate the impact of informational media on the evaluation of promotional messages. In this paper, we especially focus on the different medium effects of textual versus pictorial presentations of hotel information.

Existing research provides mixed evidence regarding the relationship between different medium presentations and the level of abstractness/concreteness. On the one hand, Amit, Algom, and Trope (2009) suggested that the processing of textual and pictorial information could be influenced by the different construal levels. They argued that words are based on relatively abstract representations, whereas pictures are based on relatively concrete representations. The results revealed that people showed faster responses to pictures [slower responses to words] when they were thinking in concrete versus abstract construals. On the other hand, Holbrook and Moore (1981) suggested the opposite prediction. They argued that pictorial information is processed holistically in the left hemisphere, whereas textual information is processed atomistically in the right hemisphere. Thus, pictorial information can be thought of as a relatively abstract representation because it is associated with a large representation in the left hemisphere, whereas verbal information can be thought of as a relatively concrete representation because it generates a singular representation in the right hemisphere.

If the congruency and fit between the information medium and construal level influence the evaluation of the target object or event, we can expect a similar pattern of relationships between the information medium (textual vs. pictorial) and construal level in providing promotional messages for a hotel. Specifically, when the information medium is presented in an abstract form, we can predict that individuals’ evaluations will be enhanced when people think in abstract construals (e.g., when traveling time is relatively far in the future and/or when the traveling place is for a relatively far destination). In contrast, when the information medium is presented in a concrete form, it may be helpful for people to make an evaluation of the hotel, especially when the construals are concrete rather than abstract. Therefore, we can predict the opposite hypotheses below, based on two different theoretical streams (Amit, Algom, and Trope 2009; Holbrook and Moore 1981):

Hypothesis 3a: The information medium will moderate the impact of construals on the evaluation of a described hotel. When hotel information is provided in pictorial form, people’s evaluation will be higher when the construals are concrete rather than abstract. When hotel information is provided in textual form, people’s evaluation will be higher when the construals are abstract rather than concrete.

Hypothesis 3b: The information medium will moderate the impact of construals on the evaluation of a described hotel. When hotel information is provided in pictorial form, people’s evaluation will be higher when the construals are abstract rather than concrete. When hotel information is provided in textual form, people’s evaluation will be higher when the construals are concrete rather than abstract.

Study 1

Introduction

The main purpose of Study 1 was to test the impact of temporal construal on evaluations regarding the different descriptions of hotel information proposed in hypothesis 1. The temporal construals were manipulated in three different levels, including near future, middle future, and far future. We also examined the effect of personal reservation experiences in using a hotel booking website to exclude a lack of experience as an alternative explanation.

Method

Subjects and design

One hundred six undergraduate students (74.2% female; average age = 21.3) at a large university in New Zealand participated in the study. Participants in this study were assigned to one of 3 (Temporal distance: near future vs. middle future vs. far future) by 2 (Hotel description: concrete information vs. abstract information) by 2 (Order of information: concrete information first–then abstract information vs. abstract information first–then concrete information) by 2 (information medium: word only vs. word and picture) mixed-factorial experimental condition. The order of information was a within-subject factor, and all other factors were between-subjects factors.

Procedure

Participants first were asked to read the general instructions of this study and were asked to imagine that they were planning a vacation. We manipulated temporal distance by the timing of the vacation. Specifically, participants in the near [middle/far] future condition were asked to imagine that their vacation would be in the next week [in a few months / in a year]. Then, participants were further asked to imagine that they finalized two hotels after searching for the hotels in the place they were going to visit and to evaluate the hotels based on the information. We manipulated the description of the hotel information by varying the abstractness and concreteness of both the textual and pictorial information of the hotel. Specifically, the information in the abstract condition is described generally and abstractly (e.g., “Comfortable bed and top-quality bedding” or “Vast range of sports facilities is available for active guests to achieve true wellness and excitement”) by illustrating abstract pictures (e.g., broad scenery around the hotel). On the other hand, the information in the concrete condition is described specifically and in detail (e.g., “Bed with pillowtop mattresses and 100% down comforters” or “24-hour fitness centre featuring the latest equipment, 20-meter outdoor swimming pool, and an 18-hole golf course”) by showing concrete pictures (e.g., detailed hotel room).

Roughly 50% of the participants were first exposed to the hotel with abstract information and then were exposed to the hotel with concrete information, whereas the rest were exposed in the opposite order. The information medium was also manipulated by showing the word-description-only condition versus the word-and-picture condition. The order of information factor and the information medium factor were not significant and did not interact with the other factors. Therefore, we ignored these two factors for further analysis.

After exposing the first hotel’s information, participants were asked to indicate their attitude toward the hotel (e.g., “Please rate your overall attitude toward Hotel A”) on three items anchored with a 7-point scale (1 = very bad / very favorable / very negative; 7 = very good / very favorable / very positive; Cronbach’s alpha = .91) (Ahluwalia and Gurhan-Canli 2000; Simonin and Ruth 1998). Participants were asked to answer the same questions after the second hotel (Cronbach’s alpha = .93). Participants were also asked to respond to their perceived abstractness of the two hotel’s information (e.g., “Generally, I think that the information of Hotel A (B) is”) on a 7-point scale (1 = very concrete; 7 = very abstract) (Doest and Semin 2005; Rudd, Aaker, and Norton 2013). Finally, participants completed all sections on the survey, including personal reservation experience, including their use of a hotel booking website, hotel experience, their gender, and age. Then, participants were thanked and debriefed.

Results

Manipulation check

Participants in the abstract information condition (mean [M] = 4.71) showed higher perceived abstractness than participants in the concrete information condition (M = 3.22), t(105) = 5.75, p <.001. Thus, our manipulation of abstractness for the hotel description was successful.

Attitude toward hotel: Between-subjects analysis

We conducted a between-subjects analysis based on the data from the first hotel. We expected a significant interaction effect from the two factors of “temporal distance” and “hotel description” in hypothesis 1. The results of this study supported our prediction.

The main effect of temporal distance was significant, F(2, 100) = 5.32, p < .01. The evaluation of the hotel was high when temporal distance was in the far future (M = 6.16) or when temporal distance was in the near future (M = 5.84), whereas the evaluation was relatively low when temporal distance was in the middle future (M = 5.60). The main effect of the hotel description was also marginally significant, F(1, 100) = 3.47, p = .066. The evaluation of the hotel was slightly higher when the description was abstract (M = 6.01) than when it was concrete (M = 5.75). More importantly, the interaction effect between temporal distance and the hotel description was significant, F(2, 100) = 3.02, p <.05. Planned contrasts involving a set of comparisons between group means (Field 2013) were conducted because it was necessary to test whether our theoretical prediction and hypothesis were consistent with the detailed patterns proposed. A contrast analysis also confirmed some of our expectations. When temporal distance was in the far future, participants in the abstract information condition (M = 6.62) showed more positive attitudes toward the hotel than those in the concrete information condition (M = 5.82), Contrast F(1, 100) = 8.94, p < .005. In contrast, when temporal distance was in the middle future, there was no significant difference between the concrete and abstract information conditions (M =5.51 vs. M = 5.69), Contrast F(1, 100) < 1. When temporal distance was in the near future, participants in the concrete information condition (M = 5.90) showed more positive attitudes toward the hotel than those in the abstract information condition (M = 5.78). However, the difference was not statistically significant; Contrast F(1, 100) < 1. In sum, the results supported our prediction of hypothesis 1 for the far future condition only.

Attitude toward hotel: Within-subject analysis

We conducted a within-subject analysis on the basis of the two hotels. The main effect of the hotel description was not significant, F(1, 103) = .025, p = .87, but the main effect of temporal distance was significant, F(2, 103) = 3.15, p < .05. As expected, the result of a repeated-measures analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that a 2-way interaction between temporal distance and hotel description was significant, F(2, 103) = 4.81, p = .01. A planned contrast analysis also confirmed our expectations, as illustrated in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

The evaluation of hotel across temporal conditions in Study 1.

When temporal distance was in the near future, participants in the concrete information condition (M = 6.10) showed more positive attitudes toward the hotel than those in the abstract information condition (M = 5.73), Contrast F(1, 103) = 4.82, p < .05. However, when temporal distance was in the middle future, there was no significant difference between the concrete and abstract information conditions (M = 5.66 vs. M = 5.60), Contrast F(1, 103) < 1. Finally, when temporal distance was in the far future, participants in the abstract information condition (M = 6.24) showed more positive attitudes toward the hotel than those in the concrete information condition (M = 5.86), Contrast F(1, 103) = 4.74, p < .05. In sum, the results supported our predictions for hypothesis 1. The results of the within-subject analysis are more powerful when considering the fact that people are exposed to multiple sources of hotel information when searching in reality.

The effect of personal experience

It might be argued that the results do not reflect reality because a student sample was used for the experiment, and they might not have much experience booking or using hotels. However, participants in this study showed high levels of hotel experience. Specifically, among the 106 participants, 79.8% have hotel booking experience and 90.5% have recently stayed at a hotel. In order to exclude any alternative explanations concerning personal experience in using travel websites and hotels, we compare the results from participants who have personal experience versus all participants. The results of a repeated-measures ANOVA only from participants who have experience booking hotels showed similar patterns of results out of all participants, as shown in Table 1. Specifically, we found a significant two-way interaction between temporal distance and hotel description, F(2, 80) = 3.05, p = .05, only for participants with personal experience in booking hotels. The results of a planned contrast analysis were also similar to those from all participants. Therefore, we can infer that the participants of this study represent experienced travelers, and that there was no problem associated with using a homogenous sample of students to test this research question.

Table 1.

Evaluation of hotels in Studies 1 and 2.

	All Participants		Participants with Booking Experience
Description	Concrete Description	Abstract Description	Concrete Description	Abstract Description
Study 1	n = 106		n = 83
Near future	6.10 (0.61)^a	5.73 (0.96)	6.16 (0.53)	5.74 (1.03)
Middle future	5.66 (1.07)	5.60 (1.00)	5.52 (1.09)	5.62 (0.94)
Far future	5.86 (0.72)	6.24 (0.82)	5.88 (0.69)	6.12 (0.85)
Study 2	n = 64		n = 48
Near destination	6.17 (0.75)	5.30 (1.18)	6.28 (0.61)	5.26 (1.12)
Far destination	5.68 (1.17)	5.78 (1.14)	5.61 (1.28)	5.66 (1.19)

Numbers in parentheses are standard deviations

Discussion

The results of this study generally supported hypothesis 1. In this study, we found a significant impact of temporal construals on the evaluations involving different descriptions of hotel information. Specifically, when participants were asked to imagine traveling in the far future, their evaluations of an abstractly described hotel were better than a concretely described hotel. In contrast, when people were asked to imagine traveling in the near future, the opposite was true. In addition, when people were asked to imagine traveling in the middle future, their evaluations of the two differently described hotels were similar and relatively lower than the evaluations of the near future/concrete description condition and that of the far future/abstraction condition. Specifically, a further data analysis of Study 1 suggests a nonlinear pattern: for a concrete description, evaluations of the near future (M = 6.10) are higher than evaluations of the middle future (M = 5.66, p < .05); however, evaluations of the middle future (M = 5.66) and the far future (M = 5.86) are not significantly different (p = .31). For an abstract description, evaluations of the far future (M = 6.24) are higher than evaluations of the middle future (M = 5.60, p < .05). However, evaluations of the middle future (M = 5.60) and the near future (M = 5.73) are not significantly different (p = .55). The results of this nonlinear pattern are easily explained because two extreme levels of descriptions (i.e., high abstract and extreme concrete descriptions) without the middle level were given for this study. The evaluation for the middle future construal condition is expected to be high when the description lies between the abstract and concrete levels (this nonlinear pattern will be further addressed in the General Discussion section). We also found that the effect of temporal construal on evaluations involving different descriptions of hotel information was significant, regardless of participants’ personal experiences in booking or using hotels. The experimental design of Study 1 has limitations in empirically testing the impact of the information medium in promotional messages for hotels because we manipulated the concreteness or abstractness of the information description by varying the level of textual and pictorial information, in either concrete or abstract terms. Thus, the impact of information medium will be tested in Study 3, after demonstrating consistent results from spatial construals in Study 2.

Study 2

Introduction

Study 2 was conducted to examine the impact of spatial construal, which is frequently used as another example of psychological distance in marketing and psychology studies (e.g., Keh and Pang; 2010; Miao and Mattila 2013) on the evaluation of different descriptions of hotel information. The spatial construals were manipulated in two different levels, including a near destination and a far destination. Similar to Study 1, we also examined the effect of personal reservation experience in using a hotel booking website to exclude a lack of experience as an alternative explanation.

Method

Subjects and design

Sixty-four undergraduate students (39.1% female; average age = 22.2) at a large university in New Zealand participated in the study. Participants in this study were assigned to one of 2 (Spatial distance: relatively near destination vs. relatively far destination) by 2 (Hotel description: concrete information vs. abstract information) by 2 (Order of information: concrete information first vs. abstract information first) mixed-factorial experimental condition. The order of information was a within-subject factor, and all other factors were between-subjects factors.

Procedure

The procedure of Study 2 was similar to that of Study 1. Participants were first asked to read the general instructions of this study and were asked to imagine that they were planning a vacation. Then, we manipulated spatial distance by the location of the vacation, holding quite similar the features (e.g., weather and small island) of the two destinations. Specifically, participants in the relatively near [far] destination condition were asked to imagine that their vacation would be in Waiheke Island in New Zealand [Eivissa Island in Valencia, Spain]. Specifically, participants in the relatively near destination condition were informed that “Waiheke Island is located within 30 minutes from Auckland city by ferry,” whereas those in the relatively far destination condition were informed that “Eivissa Island is located within 30 minutes from Valencia by ferry. It takes 20 hours from Auckland to Valencia, Spain by plane.” Then, participants were further asked to imagine that they finalized two hotels after searching for the hotels in the place they were going to visit and to evaluate the hotels, based on the given information.

We manipulated the description of information in a similar way as in Study 1. However, we used one information medium condition by showing a word description only. The order of hotels was manipulated, as in Study 1. Thus, roughly 50% of the participants were first exposed to the hotel with abstract information and then were exposed to the hotel with concrete information, whereas the rest were exposed in the opposite order. The order of information factor was not significant and did not interact with the other factors. Therefore, we ignored this factor in further analyses.

After being exposed to the first hotel’s information, participants then were asked to indicate their attitude toward the hotel on three items of a 7-point scale (1 = very bad / very unfavorable / very negative; 7 = very good / very favorable / very positive; Cronbach’s alpha = .94). Participants were asked to answer the same questions after the second hotel (Cronbach’s alpha = .96). After providing their evaluations, participants were asked to indicate their choices in order to see if similar patterns of results would emerge between the two different response modes (i.e., evaluation and choice): researchers have suggested the possibility of inconsistent answers between evaluation and choice (Bettman, Luce, and Payne 1998; Park and Kim 2005). Participants were also asked to respond to their perceived abstractness of the two hotels’ information on a 7-point scale (1 = very concrete, 7 = very abstract). Finally, participants completed all sections on the survey, including hotel booking and usage experience, their gender, and age. Finally, participants were thanked and debriefed.

Results

Manipulation check

Participants in the abstract information description condition (M = 4.80) showed higher perceived abstractness than participants in the concrete description information condition (M = 3.27), t(63) = 4.05, p <.001. Thus, our manipulation of the hotel description was successful. Similar to Study 1, we conducted a between-subjects analysis only from the data of evaluation regarding the first hotel and the within-subject analysis for using the two evaluations.

Attitude toward hotel: Between-subjects analysis

We expected a significant interaction effect from the two factors of “spatial distance” and “hotel description.” The results of this study supported our prediction. Both main effects of spatial distance and hotel description were not significant (p = .32). More importantly, the interaction effect between spatial distance and hotel description was significant, F(1, 60) = 5.85, p = .019. A contrast analysis confirmed some of our expectations. When spatial distance was manipulated for a relatively near destination, participants in the concrete information condition (M = 6.24) showed more positive attitudes toward the hotel than those in the abstract information condition (M = 5.31), Contrast F(1, 60) = 6.29, p < .02. In contrast, when spatial distance was manipulated for a relatively far destination, participants in the abstract information condition (M = 5.79) showed more positive attitudes toward the hotel than those in the concrete information condition (M = 5.41). However, the difference was not statistically significant, Contrast F(1, 60) = .93, p =.34. In sum, the results only from the near destination supported our prediction of hypothesis 2.

Attitude toward hotel: Within-subject analysis

The main effect of spatial distance was not significant, F(1, 62) = .002, p = .97, but the main effect of hotel description was significant, F(1, 62) = 4.87, p < .05. More importantly, as expected, the results of a repeated-measures ANOVA showed a significant two-way interaction between spatial distance and hotel description, F(1, 62) = 7.96, p = .006. A planned contrast analysis also confirmed our expectations. When spatial distance was manipulated for a relatively near destination, participants in the concrete information condition (M = 6.17) showed more positive attitudes toward the hotel than those in the abstract information condition (M = 5.30), Contrast F(1, 62) = 13.48, p = .001. In contrast, when spatial distance was manipulated for a relatively far destination, there was no difference between the abstract information condition (M = 5.78) and the concrete information condition (M = 5.68), Contrast F(1, 62) = .18, p = .67.

We analyzed different planned contrasts, as illustrated in Figure 2. Specifically, the participants in the relatively near destination condition (M = 6.17) showed higher evaluations of the concretely described hotel information than those in the relatively far destination condition (M = 5.68), Contrast F(1, 62) = 4.18, p < .05. On the other hand, participants in the relatively near destination condition (M = 5.30) showed lower evaluations for the abstractly described hotel information than those in the relatively far destination condition (M = 5.78), Contrast F(1, 62) = 2.73, p = .10.

Figure 2.

The evaluation of hotel across spatial conditions in Study 2.

Choice

The results of choice were quite similar to those of evaluation, Pearson χ²(1) = 6.11, p < .05. When the spatial distance was manipulated for a relatively near destination, participants chose the concretely described hotel (79.4%) rather than the abstractly described hotels (20.6%), z = 4.85, p < .001. However, when spatial distance was manipulated for a relatively far destination, there was no significant difference in preference between the concretely and abstractly described hotels (50.0% vs. 50.0%).

The effect of personal experience

Overall, participants of this study showed a high level of experience regarding hotels. Specifically, among the 64 participants, 75.0% have hotel booking experience, and 90.6% have previously stayed at a hotel. The results of a repeated-measures ANOVA only from the participants who have experience in booking hotels showed similar results for all participants, as shown in Table 1. Specifically, we found a significant 2-way interaction between spatial distance and hotel description, F(1, 46) = 6.55, p = .014. The results of a planned contrast analysis were also similar to those from all participants. Therefore, we can infer that the participants of this study represent experienced travelers and that there was no apparent problem associated with using a student sample to address this research question.

Discussion

The result of this study generally supported hypothesis 2. In this study, we found a significant impact of spatial construals on the evaluations of different descriptions of hotel information. Specifically, when participants were asked to imagine traveling to a relatively near destination, their evaluations of a concretely described hotel were better than those of an abstractly described hotel. In contrast, when people were asked to imagine traveling to a relatively far destination, their evaluations of two differently described hotels were similar. We also found similar results from participants’ choice. In sum, in this study, we found a significant effect of spatial construals in terms of evaluation and choice of hotel.

Based on the results from a relatively far destination, we can infer that the relatively far destination could be a conceptually “middle” destination rather than a “far” destination. We conjecture that if participants were asked about traveling to a far, remote place, their evaluations of an abstractly described hotel would be better than those of a concretely described hotel.

Study 3

Introduction

The main purposes of Study 3 were to examine the impact of the types of information media (textual vs. pictorial information) on the evaluations of promotional messages for hotels. More specifically, this study examined whether individuals’ evaluations would be higher when the construals are concrete (or abstract) for hotel information provided in pictorial (vs. textual) form.

Method

Subjects and design

Ninety-five undergraduate students (50.5% female, average age = 21.5) at a large university in New Zealand participated in the study. Participants in this study were assigned to one of 2 (Construal level: relatively near destination happening in the near future vs. relatively far destination happening in the far future) by 2 (Information medium: pictorial vs. textual) by 2 (Order of information: verbal information first vs. pictorial information first) mixed-factorial experimental condition. The information medium was a within-subject factor, and all other factors were between-subjects factors. The order of information was not significant, so we ignored this variable for future analysis.

Procedure

The procedure of Study 3 was quite similar to that of Studies 1 and 2, with the exception of a few modifications. Participants first were asked to read the general instructions of this study and were asked to imagine that they planned a vacation. Then, we manipulated construal level by simultaneously manipulating temporal and spatial distance. Specifically, participants in the relatively near [far] destination condition were asked to imagine that their vacation to Waiheke Island in New Zealand [Eivissa Island in Valencia, Spain] would be in the next week [in a year]. Then, participants were further asked to imagine that they finalized two hotels after searching for alternatives in the place they were going to visit and to evaluate the hotels based on the given information. We manipulated the information medium by using different hotel information. Specifically, for the pictorial information condition, participants were exposed to four different pictures of hotels by providing two concretely illustrated pictures (e.g., hotel room) and two abstractly illustrated pictures (e.g., surrounding scenery). On the other hand, for the textual information condition, participants were exposed to written explanations of the hotel, described concretely and abstractly, which were used in Study 1. After being exposed to the hotel information, participants were then asked to indicate their attitude toward the hotel with the same scale used in Study 1. Then, participants were also asked to respond to their perceived abstractness of the two hotels’ information on a 7-point scale (1 = very concrete, 7 = very abstract).

Results

Manipulation check

Participants in the pictorial information condition (M = 4.65) indicated higher perceived abstractness than participants in the textual information condition (M = 3.59), t(94) = 4.81, p < .001. In addition, the perceived abstractness of the pictorial information was higher than the neutral value of “4” (t = 4.50, p < .001), and the perceived abstractness of the textual information was lower than the neutral value of “4” (t = 2.61, p < .02). Therefore, the results of the manipulation supported the assumption of hypothesis 3b rather than hypothesis 3a.

Attitude toward hotel: Within-subject analysis

The main effect of construal level was not significant, F(1, 93) = .027, p = .87, but the main effect of information medium was significant, F(1, 93) = 19.69, p < .001. More importantly, the results of a repeated-measures ANOVA showed that the 2-way interaction between the two factors was significant, F(1, 93) = 10.03, p = .002. A planned contrast analysis supported hypothesis 3b. When participants evaluated the hotel based on the pictorial information, their attitude was more positive when the construal level was a relatively far destination happening in the far future (M = 6.24) rather than a relatively near destination happening in the near future (M = 5.94), Contrast F(1, 93) = 3.44, p < .07. However, when participants evaluated the hotel based on the textual information, their attitude was more positive when the construal level was a relatively near destination happening in the near future (M = 5.81) rather than a relatively far destination happening in the far future (M = 5.47), Contrast F(1, 93) = 2.78, p < .10. In sum, the results supported hypothesis 3b rather than hypothesis 3a.

Discussion

The current research suggests competing predictions regarding the role of information medium on the level of abstractness/concreteness. The results of this study generally supported hypothesis 3b rather than hypothesis 3a, in that people perceived pictorial information as more abstract and textual information as more concrete by supporting the theories of Holbrook and Moore (1981).

Study 4

Introduction

Throughout Studies 1 to 3, we found the significant effect of construal level on evaluations involving different descriptions of hotel information by using experiments. In this study, we examined the practical application of the hypotheses in the use of promotional strategies for travel magazines to see whether promotional information is properly developed, depending on the destination in terms of spatial distance.

Method

We randomly selected four travel magazines issued and sold in three different countries. Two magazines are issued from Auckland, New Zealand, and the others are issued from New York, United States, and London, United Kingdom. From 12 issues of the magazines published between 2010 and 2012, we selected 102 advertisements for hotel, restaurant, and travel destinations.

Two graduate students who did not know the research purpose of this study marked each advertisement as concrete versus abstract. They ranked the concreteness/abstractness of the advertisements based on (1) the overall advertisement and (2) the picture of the advertisement, along with a 7-point scale (1 = very concrete, 7 = very abstract). The evaluation from two judges were highly correlated (r = .76, p < .001, for the overall advertisement; r = .67, p < .001, for the picture only). One of our authors determined the abstractness when the two judges’ evaluations showed large differences.

The distance information was calculated by using a website (i.e., www.distancefromto.net). The specific distance was measured by the distance between the city of the issuing magazine (e.g., Auckland, New York, or London) and the advertised city or capital of a nation when the advertisement involves a nation. Because the distance data were positively skewed (i.e., skewness = 1.06) and generated problems with the normality assumption, we used a square-root transformation (i.e., new skewness = –.03) in the main analysis (Field 2013).

Results

The advertisements included those for a city/region (40.1%), for a nation (29.4%), for hotels or accommodations¹ (17.6%), for restaurants (6.9%), and others (5.9%). First of all, the correlation between the overall abstractness and abstractness of pictures was significant (r = .47, p < .001). More importantly, the correlation between the distance and abstractness of pictures was also significant, but relatively weak (r = .35, p < .001). Therefore, the findings suggest that the advertisements used relatively abstract pictures when the destination of travel was far away. However, the correlation between the distance and abstractness of overall advertisements, including textual and pictorial information, was not significant (r = .13, p = .206). Therefore, the concreteness/abstractness of the headline and other elements, such as the main copy and advertising messages, was not different across the different destinations.

Discussion

Based on the results of the field data, we found some significant effects of destination distance on the abstractness of pictorial information. As expected, advertisements in the travel industry seem to reflect the physical distance to the destination when designing promotional pictures. However, the overall advertising information, including textual messages (e.g., headlines), was not carefully created to reflect CLT.

General Discussion

The findings of this research complement the previous literature of CLT, which has rarely examined the influence in a tourism context by providing evidence of CLT’s applicability in designing hotel promotional information for travelers. This research makes a contribution to our existing knowledge by examining the impact of construal level on hotel or lodging selection or evaluation, as well as the impact of construal level on different levels of abstractness in information descriptions.

In this article, we found a significant impact of both temporal and spatial construals on evaluations involving different descriptions of hotel information. Specifically, when participants were asked to imagine traveling in the far future or to a relatively far destination, their evaluations of an abstractly described hotel were more favorable than a concretely described hotel. In contrast, when people were asked to imagine traveling in the near future or to a relatively near destination, their evaluations of a concretely described hotel were more favorable than an abstractly described hotel. We also found that the information medium (textual vs. pictorial) had a significant influence regarding the impact of psychological distance (temporal and spatial) on travelers’ preferred promotional information. When participants evaluated a hotel based on pictorial information, their attitude was more positive when the construal level was a relatively far destination rather than a relatively near destination. However, when participants evaluated a hotel based on verbal information, their attitude was the opposite. Finally, we found that advertisements in the travel industry do not always provide effective information based on CLT when analyzing advertisements from travel magazines. The results of a pictorial information analysis support our hypotheses; however, overall information, including textual information, was not carefully created to reflect CLT.

Theoretical Implications

In tandem with emerging research findings that mental representations (Dellaert, Arentze, and Horeni 2014), destination information (Pearce 2014), and branding perceptions (Campelo et al. 2014) interplay with a consumer’s thought processes during destination selection, the current study helps further portray what transpires in the consumer’s mind when evaluating a destination promotion. First, this study adds to the consumer behavior research in addressing destination selection and information searches by incorporating the concept of construal-level theory (CLT). In a series of experimental studies, we provide empirical evidence that both temporal and spatial construals significantly influence the evaluation of hotel information. Temporal and spatial distance are important factors in trip planning. Therefore, the results of this study have strong theoretical implications for travel research. In addition, we provide insight for the travel industry because the current practice in the travel industry is not parallel with suggestions from CLT (i.e., a mismatch between the abstractness/concreteness of advertisements and spatial distance). Second, the current research suggests competing hypotheses for the relationship between the level of abstractness/concreteness and different media of description (i.e., textual vs. pictorial format), based on two different streams of research (Amit, Algom, and Trope 2009; Holbrook and Moore 1981). The empirical results of Study 3 suggest that people perceive pictorial information for hotel information as more abstract and textual information as more concrete. Therefore, participants seeking hotel information preferred pictorial information under the high construal conditions, whereas they preferred verbal information under the low construal conditions. The results of this study demonstrate a significant interaction between construal-level theory and information media for the travel industry. Additional research is required to make more extensive conclusions regarding this competing prediction. Finally, we also contribute to construal-level theory by providing details of preference based on multiple construal levels. Previous studies have mostly manipulated two levels of temporal distance in their experiments (Martin, Gnoth, and Strong 2009; Fujita et al. 2008; Lee, Keller, and Sternthal 2010); however, in Study 1, we introduced three levels of temporal distance and found a significant interaction. Stated differently, participants preferred concrete information under the near future condition, whereas they preferred abstract information under the far future condition. Nevertheless, participants’ preferences were similar and relatively low between concrete and abstract information and were relatively low under the middle future condition. This detailed empirical test of different construal levels enhances our understanding of construal-level theory by emphasizing the importance of a precise fit between temporal/spatial construals and the abstract/concrete description of information. Our results extend those of existing studies, providing evidence of improvement in consumers’ responses, such as advertisement evaluation (Martin, Gnoth, and Strong 2009), product evaluation (Fujita et al. 2008; Mogilner, Aaker, and Pennington 2008), and brand attitude (Lee, Keller, and Sternthal 2010) when matching two levels of mental construal with their relevant features. The results suggest that providing the right choice of information and representation for tourists, based on their construal level, is important. However, our finding of a nonlinear relationship from multiple construal manipulations is limited in terms of its generalizability because we used only two levels of information description in Study 1 and two levels of spatial manipulation in Study 2 without the middle levels of description. Therefore, future research should be conducted in order to extend our findings by adjusting the fit between temporal/spatial construal and the abstract/concrete descriptions in multiple-level manipulations.

Practical Implications

Our research raises several challenging issues for industry practitioners. Given the fierce competition in the hotel and travel industries, where alternatives are always available, it is of particular importance to maintain potential consumers’ unwavering attention in the prepurchase stage. Our findings urge marketers to take into account bookers’ temporal and spatial distance in customizing promotional information. For example, this tailoring can be demonstrated on their websites. Appropriate information content or images (abstract vs. concrete) could be displayed when website visitors check room availability for the period of their intended stay (cf. temporal distance), according to their IP address (cf. spatial distance). Hoteliers should continue to seek out creative ways to utilize their websites to their full extent with effective positioning and development of promotional information (Baloglu and Pekcan 2006). We believe that our study encourages further marketing efforts to fully take advantage of information and technology to design innovative hotel websites.

This research also suggests that hotel employees (e.g., who make reservations) may need to be trained to prioritize promotional information when interacting with potential consumers, based on their temporal and spatial distance. Given the volume of inquiry calls from customers per each reservation staff member, it is valuable to understand the preferred kinds of information (abstract vs. concrete) for potential customers in order to initiate and process desirable business calls that result in sales completion. Therefore, more flexible price options should be given to early bookers, and sales employees need to be trained to provide potential consumers with product and price information progressively from abstract to concrete so as to complete a booking.

In some cases, the benefits of implementing the above suggestions in the area of reservations may not outweigh the training costs. It is prudent to note, however, that advertising for many hotels is designed and carried out at corporate or brand headquarters. In such cases, it would be very feasible to train marketers to tailor ads based on the findings of this research. For instance, print ads released during the winter months with a summer appeal could be designed differently than print ads released during the spring months with a summer appeal.

Further, in many markets around the globe, hotel guests pay an extra assessment fee on their hotel bills that fund a destination marketing organization (DMO) or a convention and visitors bureau (CVB) designed to market the area. Therefore, those charged with designing advertisements at such DMOs and CVBs would also benefit from designing ads in accordance with the results presented here.

Under the circumstances in which a hotel is not affiliated with a brand, chain, management company, DMO, or CVB, then it is still worthwhile to note that many hotel properties now use social media programming tools (e.g., Revinate) and e-mail marketing programming tools (e.g., Constant Contact) that can effectively time the placement and dispersion of multiple ads with very little effort. The hotel representative simply tells that tool when and where to send ads. Whether through social media channels or through e-mail, these tools have made it quite efficient to run simultaneous multiple streams of advertising.

In addition, the current IT technology permits web managers to provide personalized or customized information very easily and cheaply, based on specific cues (such as IP address). Therefore, the web manager of a hotel would benefit from providing appropriate information based on the results of this paper.

Limitations and Future Research

This research has several limitations that suggest future research. First of all, we mainly used a convenience sampling method and used students as participants. Although using students as the sample may hinder external validity, the primary purpose of this paper is to test the theory where homogenous respondents are preferred (Calder, Phillips, and Tybout 1981). Given that most of the participants in this research had extensive experience in hotel booking and usage, it is difficult to argue that the results of this study lack practicality. Nevertheless, future studies should enhance the external validity of this research by using more diverse participants. Second, the experimental manipulation may be considered weak, given that we provided hypothetical situations for the respondents. Future research could use a stronger manipulation or a quasi-experimental design in which individuals who actually have travel plans for a particular destination can serve as participants. Finally, the experiments were conducted using paper and pencil questionnaires. Given that most travel planning is conducted via the Internet nowadays, future research could incorporate a web-based empirical investigation to replicate this study.

Lastly, two recent studies (Davis et al. 2013; Magnini and Karande 2010) found that descriptions of smells in advertisements improve consumers’ responses to those ads. Cross-pollinating those findings with the contribution of the current study might be worthy of our attention: Does an olfactory description in an ad improve its concreteness? Is the effect of the olfactory description on responses to the ad moderated by temporal or spatial distances? Addressing these questions in future research would make another small incremental step toward improving our understanding of destination promotion strategy.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Jungkeun Kim, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer of Marketing in the Faculty of Business and Law at the Auckland University of Technology. His main research interests are in consumer decision-making and consumer behavior. He currently serves as an Associate Editor of Australasian Marketing Journal.

Peter BeomCheol Kim, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Hospitality and Tourism, and Associate Director of the New Zealand Tourism Research Institute at the Auckland University of Technology. His research interests include service management and strategic human resources management.

Jae-Eun Kim, PhD, is a senior lecturer in the Faculty of Business and Law at the Auckland University of Technology. Her research interests include consumer behavior, retail environment and cross-cultural studies.

Vincent P. Magnini, PhD, is a tenured faculty member at Virginia Tech University in the USA. His research encompasses services marketing related topics.

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