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This research aims to compare consumer responses to pro-environmental communication and appeals to recycle packaging when these messages come from a high-familiarity versus a low-familiarity brand.

Two online between-subjects experimental studies evaluate consumer perceptions and the willingness to comply with recycling appeals in response to pro-environmental communications from a high-familiarity versus a low-familiarity brand. To test the hypotheses, the studies examine the moderating role of sustainability habits and the mediating role of shared environmental responsibility.

Findings show that communicating a brand’s adoption of sustainable packaging is more salient to consumers when the appeal comes from a low-familiarity rather than a high-familiarity brand, especially when sustainability habits are weaker. The mediating role of shared environmental responsibility partly explains consumers’ commitment to act pro-environmentally.

Sustainability officials and policymakers should consider the impact of pro-environmental interventions that encourage collective recycling between brands and consumers. Practitioners are encouraged to examine revised waste management schemes such as extended producer responsibility programs to elicit the collaboration of consumers in initiatives that boost recycling and stimulate pro-environmental behaviors.

Using the diagnosticity–accessibility framework and habit theory, to the best of the author’s knowledge, this research is among the first to empirically examine the role of sustainability habits in consumer responses to pro-environmental brand communications. It also highlights consumers’ willingness to comply with brands’ take-back programs in a shared effort to reduce plastic waste and encourage a circular economy.

Online travel agencies (OTAs) have an important role to play in reactivating tourism activity following a health crisis by providing information about the health conditions of tourist destinations. Once developed, it is necessary to analyze the effectiveness of the information provided and ascertain whether the provision of such information effects the understanding of the value of using OTAs and, in turn, the intention to do so.

This paper, based on an empirical case study conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic, examines whether following a health crisis, the quality of information provided by OTAs on the health conditions of tourist destinations and the perceived value of their offer generate a greater OTA services reuse intention, and signals, therefore, a return to travel.

The results show the quality of the information positively influences the perceived value, but not the OTA services reuse intention. Rather, the perceived value positively influences the OTA services reuse intention.

Overall, it can be suggested that providing quality health information for a destination is a necessary strategy because it contributes to increasing the perceived value of OTAs. To incentivize the intention for repeated use of OTA services, it is necessary to consider the perceived value that influences the intention to make repeat OTA reservations.

This research offers a novel perspective about the OTAs’ contribution to the recovery of the activity of the tourism industry after a health crisis. This contributes to achieving a more resilient sector in the face of future health crises.