Safina Naz

While the hospitality field celebrates emotional and hedonic approaches to sustainability communication, my research examines how emotion is constructed, when it backfires, and what makes it behaviourally meaningful. Specifically, I investigate how hotel guests construct emotional meaning through relational meaning making; why pleasure- and comfort-based appeals can backfire by raising credibility concerns among sceptical consumers; and how warm glow from charity-linked interventions depends on perceived match between the charitable cause, the requested behaviour, and the consumer's identity. My work combines physiological methods, projective techniques, and experimental designs to capture emotion as both embodied and interpreted, moving beyond self-report measures that dominate the field. The findings from the first two studies have already informed industry practice, contributing to a whitepaper co-developed with Accor and Booking.com on engaging travellers in more sustainable behaviour. As the research programme reaches completion, further industry impact is anticipated.