Corporate social responsibility communication increases the visibility of a company’s pro-social efforts. However, the more a company communicates, the more likely negative consumer reactions such as skepticism may occur. With a focus on pro-environmental CSR messages in the hotel industry, this study examines the effects of message objectivity and focuses on consumers’s CSR-oriented and advertising-oriented responses. Our findings demonstrated that objective and outcome-focused messages were more effective to reduce consumers’s skepticism and lead consumers to perceive a hotels’s CSR motive as public-serving. Moreover, it engendered positive advertising results such as reinforcing a hotel’s favorable image and reputation. This study further highlighted the key functions of consumer skepticism towards CSR by manifesting its significant mediating effects on the relationships between a hotel’s message and consumers’s advertising-oriented responses.
