Tourists' Social Responsibility Perceptions of an Urban Destination in China: The Mediating Role of Consumption Emotions

Using a Stimulus-Organism- Response (S-O-R) framework, the current study proposes that the perceived social responsibility of an urban destination elicits tourists' affective responses, which contributes to tourists' post-visit behavioral intentions. Empirical findings from a sample of 541 Chinese tourists reveal that visitors who are attentive to destination social responsibility initiatives are apt to have more positive consumption emotions, while destination social responsibility is negatively associated with negative consumption emotions. Consumption emotions partially mediate the effects of perceived destination social responsibility on intentions to revisit a destination, make referrals, and/or seek other travel destinations. Interestingly, the predicted relationship of destination social responsibility to intentions to search for alternative destinations was statistically significant, but in the reverse direction. Study implications of these important findings are discussed, limitations provided, and future research directions suggested.