Promoting green sporting events for sustainable tourism: evaluating communication strategies and sports endorser impact on food waste

Food and beverages play a crucial role in enriching the on-site experience for visitors attending sporting events, which represent a significant segment of the tourism industry. However, the festive and aroused atmosphere, with the tendency for unpredictable behavior among individuals, often results in excessive food and beverage waste, raising concerns for sustainable event management. To mitigate this, this research aims to identify optimal message strategies that evoke attendees’ food waste-reduction behaviors. Through two quasi-experimental studies, we investigated the effectiveness of goal-framed messages on reducing food waste and the interaction effects with price consciousness and sports endorser type. The findings demonstrate that specific goal-framed messages can significantly influence attendees’ food waste reduction behaviors, and that these effects vary depending on attendees’ price consciousness and the type of sports endorser. Theoretically, this research advances message framing strategies by identifying how communication can be optimized in sporting event contexts to encourage environmentally sustainable behavior. Linking food waste reduction to sustainable tourism, this study demonstrates how behavioral insights can be translated into practical strategies for managing events sustainably. Specifically, event organizers consider goal-framing their messages with price considerations and leveraging the optimal endorser’s image to communicate effectively and achieve sustainable tourism in sporting events.