Religious beliefs and food waste prevention practices: mechanisms of divine and environmental awareness

ABSTRACT Under the crisis of food and energy shortage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, it is emergently important to emphasize food waste prevention in the tourism and hospitality industry because people around the world have started traveling in the post-pandemic era. Based on norm activation model and individualism-collectivism, this study proposes a perspective of religious beliefs to conceptualize divine awareness (i.e. divine retribution and divine rewards) and environmental awareness (i.e. resource scarcity and eco-friendly) on the formation of food waste prevention practices. A total of 571 samples from Taiwan and 483 samples from the United States was collected. Both countries showed that religious beliefs improved divine retribution, divine rewards, and religious food waste prevention practices. Divine rewards enhanced tourists’ awareness of resource scarcity and eco-friendly, and resource scarcity led to religious food waste prevention practices. Interestingly, the effects of divine retribution on resource scarcity and eco-friendly were significant only in Taiwan.