| Public health emergencies seriously affect the tourism and hospitality industries,posing health risks to consumers and greatly affects their psychology and behaviour.The perception of risk caused by public health emergencies leads to negative emotions and impinges on people’s perceptions.The high level of uncertainty in the environment disrupts the original order and threatens people’s sense of control,limiting their social activities and threatening their sense of belonging.In this context,how hotel consumers,faced with different brands,make choices to satisfy their structured and emotional needs becomes a topic of concern.Therefore,this paper introduces protection motivation theory and selfdetermination theory to explore the impact of perceived threat due to public health emergencies on hotel consumers’ brand preferences and attitudes and the underlying psychological mechanisms from the perspectives of both need for control and need to belong.The findings demonstrate that:(1)Most hotel consumers prefer strong brands in the public health emergency.(2)Perceived severity and perceived vulnerability positively influence consumers’ attitudes towards strong brands.(3)The need for control and the need to belong mediate the relationship between perceived severity,perceived vulnerability and brand attitudes.Specifically,an increase in perceived severity and vulnerability will enhance consumers’ need for control and need to belong,which in turn increases their preference for strong hotel brands and brand attitudes.This study enriches the research of hotel consumer behavior in the context of public health emergencies,extends the application scenarios of the protection motive theory,enriches the research scenarios of need for control and need to belong,and provides new research perspectives and theoretical explanations for the impact of health threats on individual consumption behaviour.In addition,the findings of this study provide a reference for the development of service and marketing strategies for hotel managers. |
