With COVID-19 restricting international travel, domestic and local tourism is predicted to increase due to consumers’ desire to support local economies. Hence, local farmers’ markets have had an opportunity to evolve into attractions with increasing support from tourists, which helps benefit regional tourism and generate revenues when options to do so have been narrowed by restrictions. However, successful farmers’ markets and their evolution into tourism attractions could bring unintended consequences. While it has been established that visitors who shop at farmers’ markets do so for pro-social reasons, the unintended consequences of these pro-social behaviours should be examined more. In this study, ‘moral licensing’ and regulatory focus theory were applied to explain how a person’s pro-social behaviour gives a temporary boost to their positive self-image which subsequently gives them a ‘licence’ to act in a deviant manner.
Simply put, (moral) licensing is when a person’s pro-social behaviour makes them feel justified to behave in a negative way later. In this case, tourists shopping at a farmers’ market may elevate their moral credentials and self-image as a ‘good person,’ which may lead to subsequent negative behaviours that go against supporting their community. The differences in the size of the moral licensing effect can be examined using the theory of promotion focus. Promotion focus refers to a focus on hopes, ideals, aspirations, and gains. In a farmers’ market, supporting the local community may lead tourists with a high promotion focus to be motivated morally and hence reduce licensing behaviour. However, little is known about how this element plays out in the studied context, hence the need for investigation into the influences of promotion focus. In addition, a major gap exists in investigating licensing within an in-group context where visitors act in a deviant manner against the local group they initially support and bond with.
This study seeks to address the research gaps by: (1) exploring behaviour outcomes of visiting farmers’ markets; (2) investigating the licensing that negatively affects in-group members; and (3) testing if individual differences in promotion focus explain differences in licensing behaviours.
Method and sample
A Qualtrics survey was used for data collection. Valid respondents were those over 18 years old and had visited farmers’ markets in the past 12 months. There were 218 respondents. 25.2% indicated attending farmers’ markets weekly, 24.8% attending every 2 weeks, 10.6% every 3 weeks, and 17.9% every 4 weeks. In addition, 21.2% indicated attending less often than monthly. The average spend in one visit was $52.07, with an average annual household income of $30,001–$50,000. A scale of 1 to 5 was used in the survey to measure visit frequency. Also, each respondent was requested to write 6 anonymous reviews of their visits.
Key findings
- Participants attending farmers’ markets reported a higher positive self-image. The higher the self-image, the higher the likelihood of people engaging in negative behaviours because they feel licensed to do so even to their own in-group members.
- Also, farmers’ markets visit frequency significantly predicted positive self-image, showing the more frequently people visited farmers’ markets, the more positive their self-image became. So, farmers’ market visit frequency leads to a positive self-image, subsequently leading to deviant behaviour such as cheating.
- Promotion focus influenced the relationship between farmers’ market visit frequency and positive self-image, weakening the licensing effect. In particular, the licensing effect was only significant for visitors with low to medium promotion focus and was non-significant for those with high promotion focus.
Recommendations
Stakeholders such as the government or tourism agencies can segment visitors based on their level of promotion focus and use customised messages to encourage local food tourism while reducing the licensing effect that results in negative behaviours. To facilitate promotion focus and reduce the licensing effect, marketing messages should focus on positive outcomes and ideals regarding how purchases at farmers’ markets contribute positively to local tourism. Furthermore, stakeholders can present tailored messages that emphasise other benefits such as the product freshness to increase effectiveness.
For visitors with high promotion focus, relevant stakeholders (e.g., destination marketers, managers) should keep positioning farmers’ market visits as a pro-social behaviour to best prevent licensing within this segment with no exhibit licensing effect (as influenced by their high promotion focus). Simultaneously, the pro-social shopping motivation of visiting farmers’ markets will not be undermined during the process.
In short, understanding the role of promotion focus on licensing behaviour at farmers’ markets can help stakeholders in the tourism and local food sectors design effective marketing strategies that encourage pro-social behaviour and mitigate the potential negative consequences of licensing
Researcher
More information
The research article is also available on eprints.