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Refereed/Peer-reviewed Design of advertising stimuli is critical for marketing, especially to destinations which have limited exposure to visitors. Existing studies postulate the design of advertising affects the amount and valence of thoughts (Cognition), thought confidence (Metacognition) and attitudes towards a destination. Despite this, limited research has considered the influence of emotional arousal and perceived credibility of advertising on cognition, metacognition and attitude. This research implemented a two-by-two experimental design to examine how cognition, metacognition and attitude differ across different levels of emotional arousal and perceived credibility of an advertisement of Iran. Results demonstrate participants showed higher cognitive engagement with the advertisement and more thought confidence and developed more favourable thinking and attitude to Iran in response to a highly credible and emotionally arousing tourism stimulus. A key contribution of this research is that high emotional arousal evokes more favourable cognition, metacognition and attitude towards a destination.

Research on visitor attitudes to tourism destinations is an established area of scholarly attention. This research note provides a critical commentary of the theoretical trends in visitor attitude studies based on a systematic review of 162 journal articles in top tier journals between 1977 and 2019. This short communication contributes to tourism research and scholarship by demonstrating that prior research on visitor attitude is predominantly descriptive and lacks theoretical engagement, with the gap between a theoretical and theoretical articles expanding proportionally over time. Scholars should consider the application of active theory from parent (sub)disciplines such as social psychology and cognitive psychology to provide future research on visitor attitudes to tourism destinations with much needed depth, substance and theoretical maturity. Refereed/Peer-reviewed