Chapter 22: How Advertising E-Atmospherics Impact Consumer Behaviour: Evidence from True Field Experiments in Hospitality and Tourism

This study describes the impact of changes in e-atmospherics in internet advertisings on consumer clicks and purchases. The study describes two unobtrusive field experiments: testing the impact of a third-party endorsement message embed in email advertising on customer clicks and purchases and testing the impact of sweepstake-award embeds in email advertising on customers’ clicks and time using brand (Blikwayski) tourism information. The studies include multiple dependent variables ranging from clicks-to-open email, clicks-to-open offer, clicks-to-purchase room rental, number-of-nights stayed and total revenue generated for the treatment versus control groups. Behaviour responses were higher for all dependent measures per participants in the treatments versus control groups. This study supports Eskin’s (1975), Cialdini’s (2006) and List’s (2011) proposal that true-field experiments can provide substantive direct evidence on the impact of alternative marketing treatments on behaviour.