The warm glow effect and tourist pro-environmental behaviour

This study aims to identify effective forms of education that motivate tourists to implement pro-environmental behaviors from the perspective of warm glow theory. We introduce the cuteness effect, originally from the marketing field, into tourism studies and explore tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour. National parks are chosen as the study area due to their rich biodiversity and primary role in environmental education. Experimental research methods with textual and pictorial materials are utilised to manipulate the cuteness effect in education and validate the research hypotheses. The results reveal that cute education increases tourists’ willingness to engage in pro-environmental behaviours, with anticipated warm glow mediating this process. Perceived outcome efficacy plays a moderating role between cute education and pro-environmental behaviour. Faced with the cute education, tourists with higher perceived outcome efficacy are more likely to generate pro-environmental behaviour in national parks. This study reveals the impacts of cute education on tourists in national parks, expanding the existing research on environmental education and the cuteness effect. The findings offer new insights for national park managers to promote pro-environmental behaviours amongst tourists, and also provide crucial guidance for DMOs on how to enhance tourists’ pro-environmental behaviour after engaging in cuteness education.