Eco-friendly Attitudes, Barriers to Participation, and Differences in Behavior at Green Hotels

Abstract

A deeper understanding of customers’ desire for and participation in green activities can lead to organizations designing more efficient and effective green programs. This research finds that the guests’ assessment of the importance of being environmentally friendly has the greatest effect on their intention to stay in a green hotel. Second, the research identifies the following customer barriers to participation: inconvenience, perceptions of cost cutting, and decreased luxury—all of which significantly affect consumers’ intention to stay at a green hotel or pay more for a room in such a hotel. Third, the results show that customers believe that hotels should have certain green practices, but did not consider it important to stay in a hotel that actually maintains the thirteen green practices tested here. Fourth, the results find that customers behave with greater environmental responsibility at home than they do in a hotel. Among the implications of these findings is the idea that hotel managers’ communications and actions must be relevant to guests’ concerns by educating customers, increasing convenience to participate in green programs, and decreasing perceptions of cost cutting.

Accommodation Consumers and Providers’ Attitudes, Behaviours and Practices for Sustainability: A Systematic Review

“…Several studies found that individuals who already participated in general pro-environmental behaviour or consumption practices were more likely to choose to stay at a green hotel, over those who did not [67,76]. A consumer's "green" attitude is therefore a key mediator of their intention to stay at a green hotel [77].…”

“…The most common sustainable hotel practices that customers appeared to value and think of were the use of recycle bins and recycled products, as well as reusable towel and linen schemes [39,47,63]. Inconvenience remains a powerful barrier to consumers in adopting sustainable practices in hotels [67].…”

Greening the lodging industry: Current status, trends and perspectives for green value

“…manipulative intent) attributed to the application of green practices. The effects of perceived trade-offs of green lodging services on consumers' preferences is another relevant, evolving issue (Baker et al, 2014;Olson, 2013). Also, prior work has demonstrated that consumers may experience a higher level of sensitivity to justice when consuming luxury products (Kivetz & Simonson 2002).…”

A Critique of the Methodological Approaches to Hotel Guest Green Consumerism Empirical Researches Since 2000

“… In line with calls by various researchers such as Baker et al (2013), Millar and Baloglu (2011) and many more, studies examining hotel consumer behaviour should be undertaken in actual hotel settings to increase their validity. There is therefore a need for researchers to dialogue with hotel owners to allow researches to be carried out within their premises and with clients but in a winwin situation.…”