Exploring a hierarchical model for circular economy transition through launching green marketing

Abstract

The hospitality industry has been highlighted as an important economic sector that is vulnerable to climate change. However, this industry is also considered to have a substantial contribution to the degradation of the environment by consuming excessive quantities of energy, producing approximately 8% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions. Previous studies have proposed the circular economy as an optimal concept to address this issue by eliminating waste and maximizing resource utilization. In light of that, many hotels are striving to shift the traditional linear economy into a circular economy by adopting green marketing into their business operations. However, they still face many obstacles in making an effective transition to a circular‐style economy due to the lack of an appropriate approach. To fill this gap, this study aims to develop a framework to give insights on which aspects can foster the circular economy transition process through green marketing implementation. Therefore, this study proposes a hybrid method that integrates an exploratory factor analysis with a fuzzy synthetic method and a decision‐making trial and evaluation laboratory to structure the hierarchical model and provide guidance to decision‐makers for future improvements under resource constraints. The results reveal that advantage acquisition and behavior transition are the most influential aspects in accelerating the transition to the circular economy in the hospitality industry. The crucial theoretical and managerial implications are also discussed.