COVID19 and the PEB

(Green Hotels research report)

Introduction

Recent research has shown that people may alter or adjust their values and/or behavioral
tendencies to cope with the worries or anxiety caused by natural or human-made disasters . For
example, people experiencing fear of a disaster tend to reinforce their communal well-being and
enhance their altruistic behavioural intentions . The outbreak of COVID-19 was closely related to
environmentally destructive behaviours, specifically the hunting of wild animals. In relation to the
hospitality industry, it is thus plausible that fear and uncertainty induced by the pandemic may
promote environmental concerns among consumers and thus stimulate their preference for green
hotels.

Over the same period, however, the revenue losses recorded by green hotels were 5.75% lower than
those of non-green hotels on a year-on-year basis. It appears that consumers were more willing to
visit green hotels than non-green hotels during the early stages of the outbreak. Meanwhile, more
than 85% of the non-green hotels surveyed stated that they were willing to implement additional
green practices after the epidemic.

Literature Review

(Green Hotels)

In this study, we propose two factors to capture people’s responses to the current pandemic
situation: fear and uncertainty of COVID-19. The former is a typical emotional response to the crisis
[12]; the latter is a typical cognitive response.

The uncertainty of COVID-19 captures a reasonable cognitive response to the pandemic. Large
numbers of asymptomatic infected people, a lack of effective treatment, and continuously changing
infection and mortality trends add up to a health crisis with a complex and unpredictable pattern,
which gives rise to cognitive uncertainty.

From an anthropocentric altruism perspective, people care about care about environmental quality
mainly because they believe that a degraded environment poses a threat to people’s health. Thus, it
is not the threat to the environment but the threat to the well-being of people that is of central
concern.

Hypothesis

Hypothesis 1 (H1). The fear of COVID-19 positively affects environmental concerns.

Hypothesis 2 (H2). The uncertainty of COVID-19 positively affects environmental concerns.

Hypothesis 3 (H3). Environmental concerns positively affect green hotel brand trust

Hypothesis 4 (H4). Green hotel brand trust positively affects the willingness to pay more for green
hotels.
 Hypothesis 5 (H5). Green hotel brand trust positively affects the willingness to make sacrifices to
stay at green hotels

Conclusion

In summary, the results revealed that fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 significantly increased
consumers’ environmental concerns and green hotel brand trust, which in turn enhanced their
willingness to pay more and willingness to make sacrifices to stay at green hotels

Although many people are extremely fearful of COVID-19, there is some optimism that this very fear
may also alert people to the importance of environmental protection and thus strengthen their
green consumption tendencies in the hotel industry.

. From our empirical results, we show that

(1) fear and uncertainty of COVID-19 have had a significant positive impact on consumers’
environmental concerns;

(2) environmental concerns have a significant positive impact on green hotel brand trust; and

(3) green hotel brand trust positively affects the willingness to pay more and the willingness to make
sacrifices to stay at green hotels.
 COVID19 emergency and PEB

Introduction

A growing number of people have realized that the uncontrolled demands of our modern society
have harmed the ecological balance and damaged the ecological environment. It also has brought
serious retribution to human survival and sustainable development at the same time (Chakraborty
and Maity, 2020).

Previous studies have shown that the cognition of event relevance can trigger different affective
reactions, and influence subsequent behaviors (Butts et al., 2015). Therefore, an individual’s ER
toward COVID-19 pandemic may also be an important antecedent of environmental affective
reactions. In addition, when facing an event, the individuals’ cognition of event coping would also
produce different affective reactions

HYPOTHESIS

H1a. Emergency relevance has a positive effect on positive environmental affective reactions
regarding COVID-19.

H1b. Emergency coping has a positive effect on positive environmental affective reactions regarding
COVID-19.

H2. COVID-19 emergency cognition has a positive effect on negative environmental affective
reactions.

H2a. Emergency relevance has a positive effect on negative environmental affective reactions
regarding COVID-19. H2b. Emergency coping has a positive effect on negative environmental
affective reactions regarding COVID-19.

PEBI is a powerful predictor of pro-environmental behavior (Chen et al., 2020; Si et al., 2020; Zahedi
et al., 2019). When an appropriate behavioral intention is obtained, it can provide a more accurate
behavioral prediction (Ajzen, 1991). Therefore, in this study, it is suitable to measure PEBI rather
than the actual pro-environmental behavior.

It is important to note that these studies focus more on negative affective reactions instead of the
role of positive affective reactions.

The AET points out that behaviors come directly from affective reactions, which are directly
influenced by the cognitive process of event

CONCLUSION
results of this study showed that public COVID-19 emergency cognition can stimulate different
environmental affective reactions, so as to promote individual pro-environmental behavioral
intentions. First, we found that the public’s different cognition of COVID-19 emergency had different
influences on environmental affective reactions. Second, by comparing the intensity of the positive
and negative environmental affective reactions regarding the pandemic, we found that although the
level of negative environmental affective reactions is slightly higher than the positive environmental
affective reactions, the overall impact of positive environmental affective reactions on pro-
environmental behavioral intentions is stronger than the negative environmental affective reactions.
Finally, this study confirms that positive and negative environmental affective reactions have
significantly different effects on public pro-environmental behaviour.
 COVID-19, consumer behavior, technology, and society

INTRODUCTION

Regarding Stage 1, this study primarily describes and systematizes the existing literature on
consumer behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic. This objective can be broken down into three
specific ob[1]jectives. Thus, this study aims • O1: To describe the characteristics and
interrelationships of relevant studies • O2: To generate a structured systematization of their
contents and results • O3: To establish the limitations and gaps in existing knowledge, thereby
ascertaining the scope for future lines of research

FINDINGS

Regarding consumer behavior, comparing the study findings to be[1]haviors observed in other
disruptive events yield interesting conclu[1]sions. Impulsive and panic buying seems to be common
to all disruptive events. Therapeutic purchases seem to be more linked to natural di[1]sasters, where
physical possessions suffer damages. The avoidance behavior of certain products and services
appears to be more linked to terrorism and pandemics. However, despite these similarities, the role
of technology in shopping has induced a unique consumer behavior under COVID-19. Indeed,
technology has been transversal to the different consumer behaviors under COVID-19.

This massive and extensive learning of the use of technologies will have consequences in the validity
of knowledge developed before the pandemic in key consumer behavior topics and technology use.

RECOMMENDATIONS

The review and systematization of the literature leave important recommendations for firms and
organizations. Primarily, firms must incorporate rapid digital transformation in their processes. For
example, although social media was already significant in societies before the COVID-19 crisis, its
role has now been enhanced (Naeem, 2021b). The most diverse companies can find a profitable
channel of communication and promotion in social networks. Smaller companies can utilize social
media to sell products coupled with home delivery (Butu et al., 2020), thereby beginning their digital
transformation process. For larger com[1]panies, digital social networks can help build communities
around their brands, especially during times of uncertainty and increased user traffic. Second,
companies and businesses must consider how to address the risk perceived by consumers. This risk
has been articulated as two fundamental types: the risks of infection, and fraud and misuse of data
in e-commerce transactions. The perceived risk of infection is expected to diminish with massive
vaccination campaigns
 Unusual purchasing behaviour
Introduction

Unusual retail consumer behavior, such as hoarding toilet paper and food, was reported all over the
world during March 2020 when the COVID-19 virus escalated into a pandemic (Miri et al., 2020;
Wang et al., 2020). The presumed cause was not only the looming health threat of COVID-19 and
possible risk of being quarantined, but also fears of the disease causing factories to halt production
and a global disruption of supply chains. Retail and consumer services suffered from this unusual
situation in several ways. The initial rush for certain items caused shelves to empty, while a surplus
was created for others. Google’s (2020) COVID-19 community mobility report showed that access to
retail and recreational services decreased considerably all over the world due to the pandemic after
March 2020. The changes in consumer behavior impacted not only grocery stores, convenient
stores, cafeterias, and restaurants but also their suppliers.

The aim of this study is to understand the role of information in consumer behavior during
unprecedented situations on a global scale that contain a looming threat of halted factory
production and disrupted supply chains.

For addressing the research gaps above, we adapted the stimulus[1]organism-response (S-O-R)
framework (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974) and propose two dependent variables: unusual
purchasing and volun[1]tary self-isolation.

this study focused on a country impacted by fear of COVID-19 and related disruptions, causing
proactive measures to emerge on govern[1]ment and individual level.

As we looked at the effects of online information sources on behavior, we also adopted the
cyberchondria construct (Joki�c-Begi�c et al., 2019) to describe the health anxiety that may arise
from COVID-19. Using the S-O-R framework (Mehrabian and Russell, 1974), we placed online
exposure to online information sources as the environmental stimuli, information overload as the
organism, and two psychological responses (cyberchondria and perceived severity) and two
behavioral responses (intention to make unusual purchases and intention to self-isolate) as
responses.

once an individual receives too much (and often conflicting and misleading) information regarding
COVID-19, they become overwhelmed and subsequently, experience information overload. Thus,
information overload is the result of receiving a large quantity of (novel) information within a limited
time interval that ex[1]ceeds the individual’s current working memory processing capabilitie

HYPOTHESIS

H1: Exposure to online information sources positively influences in[1]formation overload

H2. Exposure to online information sources positively influences cyberchondria.

H3. Exposure to online information sources positively influences perceived severity.

H4. Information overload increases perceived severity.

H5. Information overload increases cyberchondria.

In this paper, when discussing intention to self-isolate, we refer to the voluntary reduction of social
contacts, maintaining distance in social gatherings, and avoiding visits to restaurants, public
transportation, cafeterias, and other crowded places. Adopting this kind of behavior can be painful
for socially active individuals, while for others, it might be more natural. When discussing adopting
personal avoidance measures during a global pandemic, how close and severely humans perceive
the situation to be has been theorized to impact intention to self-isolate

H6. Perceived severity positively influences intention to self-isolate.

H7. Perceived severity increases the intention to make unusual purchases.

H8. Cyberchondria increases intention to self-isolate. H9. Cyberchondria increases intention to make
unusual purchases.

H10. Isolation self-efficacy increases intention to self-isolate. H11. Purchasing self-efficacy reduces
intention to make unusual purchases.

H12. Intention to self-isolate increases intention to make unusual purchases.

FINDINGS

The structural model results showed a clear relation between intention to self-isolate and intention
to make unusual purchases. This result empirically showed that the unusual purchasing behavior
observed in March 2020 globally was linked to quarantine preparations. Cyberchondria and
perceived severity had similar effects on the two measured behavioral responses. Thus, although the
two behaviors (un[1]usual purchasing and voluntary self-isolation) are clearly distinct from one
another, both were strictly related to COVID-19, and were predicted by the same factors.

In addition, we would like to emphasize two surprising findings. First, in contrast to our theorizing,
neither exposure to online informa[1]tion sources nor information overload had a statistically
significant ef[1]fect on how severely individuals perceived the pandemic situation. However, both
increased cyberchondria, which is a state of health anxiety. The way we measured perceived severity
(see Appendix A) was information-based. Thus, it is possible that people experiencing infor[1]mation
overload due to being exposed to too many sources of informa[1]tion about COVID-19 were unable
to process and conceptualize what was going on, which hindered their ability to perceive the actual
severity

CONCLUSION

the exposure increased health anxiety as measured by cyberchondria, and conse[1]quently, the two
measured behaviors, intention to make unusual pur[1]chasing and engaging in voluntary isolation.
Intention to self-isolate was a strong predictor of unusual purchases, suggesting that a major reason
people made unusual purchases during COVID-19 was to prepare for isolation and quarantine. In
hindsight, the panic buying phenomenon was brief, and consumer markets quickly stabilized to
unusual pur[1]chasing and then further to the new COVID-19 consumer status quo. However, the
results suggest that as long as people keep self-isolating, they will also keep making unusual
purchases.