Pragmatic Strategies in Travel and Hospitality Advertising Slogans
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Abstract
Background and Objectives: In advertising discourse, messages are often designed to use minimal words while having the maximum persuasive impact. One common way to accomplish this is through the strategic use of implicit meanings—the central focus of pragmatic theory. Among the key pragmatic concepts, presupposition (information assumed to be true based on what is explicitly stated) and implicature (additional meaning derived from the interaction between language and context) serve as powerful devices for attaining this effect. Despite the recognized importance of these pragmatic concepts in advertising, few studies have investigated their combined application in the tourism sector, specifically across its subcategories. To fill this gap, the main aim of this study is to examine how presupposition and implicature function as persuasive strategies in the different sectors of travel and hospitality advertising slogans by identifying the types of presupposition and implicature employed and analyzing the categories of the information they convey.
Methods: The study analyzed 465 travel and hospitality advertising slogans across eight industry subcategories (coach travel, train travel, camping, cruise, hostel, hotel, motel, and resort) drawn from the Database of Advertising Slogans using a mixed-methods approach involving both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Presuppositions were categorized into six types (existential, factive, lexical, structural, non-factive, and counterfactual) and implicatures were classified into three types (conventional, generalized conversational, and particularized conversational) using established pragmatic frameworks. They were then coded and tabulated for frequency analysis. Reliability was enhanced through independent coding by three researchers, followed by meetings to reach conclusions on disputed cases. A qualitative content analysis investigated the rhetorical and thematic functions of these pragmatic features. This integrated procedure allows for both quantitative precision and interpretive depth, providing insights into how implicit meaning boosts persuasion in advertising and it adapts well to the complexity of promotional discourse.
Results: The findings reveal a clear dominance of existential presuppositions (77.95%) and a strong overall preference for generalized conversational implicatures (50.58%), though distribution patterns vary by sector-specific marketing goals. Presuppositions primarily communicate five types of information: customer needs and desires, destination or experience attributes, value propositions, service quality, and brand authority. Implicatures convey six themes: sensory and emotional experience, superiority and competition, transformation and escape, service reliability and personalization, social identity and belonging, and expertise and authenticity. These categories align with the strategic focus of different travel sectors. Presupposition and implicature work cooperatively to deliver dense and compelling messages that prompt audience inference while maximizing brevity—ideal for advertising’s constrained format. This integrated analysis contributes to our understanding of how implicit meaning supports persuasive communication in tourism, especially in a service-oriented context where the product is an experience rather than a tangible object.
Application of this study: This study shows how presupposition and implicature contribute to creating concise and persuasive messages in travel advertising slogans. It offers practical insights for tailoring slogans to the unique value propositions of various travel sectors. In terms of pedagogical implications, it underscores the importance of teaching pragmatic mechanisms in business English curricula, particularly in tourism-focused contexts like Thailand. Theoretically, it highlights how these pragmatic tools function unitedly to convey layered meanings through minimal language, in line with relevance-based communication paradigms.
Conclusions: This study analyzed 465 travel and hospitality advertising slogans to explore how presupposition and implicature are utilized to convey persuasive and succinct messages in eight subcategories of the industry. Although researcher triangulation supported validity, limitations include interpretive subjectivity, the absence of multimodal context analysis, and assumptions regarding intentionality and audience effect. Future studies should therefore include visual analysis, audience reception studies, and cross-sector comparisons. Despite its limitations, the study offers practical guidance for branding in specific sectors, contributes to theoretical concepts through Relevance Theory, and supports business English education—particularly in a tourism-driven country like Thailand—by highlighting the effective incorporation of implicit strategies in professional communication.
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