Enhancing green advertising: How emotional and rational appeals influence tourists’ pro-environmental intentions based on behavior types

Green advertising is an effective method for promoting sustainable tourism by encouraging tourists to engage in environmentally friendly activities. However, existing research shows a certain degree of controversy regarding the effectiveness of different message appeals. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model, this research examines the causal relationship and underlying mechanisms between the alignment of pro-environmental behavior types with message appeals and changes in pro-environmental behavior intentions through four experiments. Findings show that in green advertising, the effectiveness of message appeals depends on the types of pro-environmental behavior. Specifically, tourists exhibit stronger pro-environmental intentions when low-effort behaviors are matched with emotional appeals and high-effort behaviors with rational appeals. In addition, the influence of message appeals and behavior types on tourists’ pro-environmental intentions is mediated by moral elevation. Furthermore, the moderating effect analysis reveals that this matching effect is significantly stronger among individuals with low green involvement. This research integrates pro-environmental behavior types into green advertising, offering a novel perspective on the debate on emotional versus rational appeals and providing actionable insights for optimizing destination management strategies.