Safety alerts reduce willingness to visit parks irrigated with recycled water

Abstract

This study demonstrates the effects of framing safety precautions on the presentation of a controversial product (recycled water [RW]) to the inhabitants of two Greek towns by asking them whether they would visit various configurations of a public park irrigated with RW. The same questions are posed in an additional version augmented with a safety alert. Among many others, results mainly show that willingness to visit (WTV) a park irrigated with RW or willingness to pay for RW decrease when respondents are confronted with the safety statement that ‘the irrigated parts are isolated and have been properly marked for the visitor so that he/she does not come into touch with RW’. Moreover, WTV does not decrease when there is previous experience with the park. The upgrade of RW from secondary to tertiary treatment is valuated only when safety alerts are present. The paper yields promotion insights useful for relevant utilities, organizations, and governments which are interested in forming a social marketing mix for this product while contributing to the theoretical and empirical understanding of framing effects with their experimental demonstration in the two case studies.