Dual-Process framing in smart tourism booking behavior: Cognitive–Emotional Tourism Readiness (CETR) scale development and validation

This paper introduces the Cognitive-Emotional Tourism Readiness (CETR) Scale, enabling researchers to understand different responses to framed booking messages as a function of their cognitive-affective schemas. Grounded in dual-process perspectives of intuitive and deliberative reasoning, the study conceptualizes booking responses as outcomes of both affective and cognitive engagement routes. CETR consists of three variables—emotional openness, travel planning confidence, and cognitive-affective switching fluency—representing the user's ability to engage with persuasive booking contexts. The scale was constructed through an item generation process with expert review and finalized into a 20-item questionnaire. To examine the behavioral relevance of CETR, a scenario-based experiment was conducted that embedded it in framed booking tasks, comparing emotional and rational framing styles with three outcomes relating to intention, urgency, and willingness to pay. Results supported emotional framing for higher engagement. Furthermore, when CETR traits were combined, they significantly predicted the strength of individual responses. Moderation effects were statistically insignificant, but the Emotional Framing–High CETR group showed descriptively stronger behavioral responses; trait–message congruence overall was not statistically confirmed. Practically, CETR introduces a scalable, non-invasive approach to user-sensitive content personalization that enables a transition from generic persuasion to ethically grounded personalization—tailored by dispositional cognitive-affective readiness.