Implications of Value Co-Creation in Green Hotels: The Moderating Effect of Trip Purpose and Generational Cohort

Abstract

Recently, great interest in value co-creation has been revealed among both academics and practitioners in the hotel sector. However, few studies are analyzing the consequences of co-creation behavior from the customer perspective in “green” (environmentally-friendly) hotels. This study explores the relationships between value co-creation and guest trust, satisfaction, and loyalty in the context of green hotels. Moreover, the role of trip purpose and generational cohort as moderating variables in these relationships is tested. The data are collected through a personal survey from 309 Spanish hotel guests, and the partial least square structural equation model (PLS-SEM) is employed to test the research hypotheses. The results of this study reveal that guest participation in the hotel’s process of value co-creation positively affects guests’ trust, satisfaction, and loyalty. Additionally, both trust and satisfaction are positively linked with customer loyalty. The findings here also suggest that only customers’ age moderates some of the relationships considered (i.e., trust–loyalty and satisfaction–loyalty). To practice, this study provides managerial implications to help hoteliers use value co-creation to develop competitive strategies that will generate more value for tourists due to the positive effects of these strategies on tourist trust, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Do IMC and Ecological Knowledge Drive Value Co-Creation? The New Way to Loyalty in Hospitality

“…A large body of empirical evidence shows that customer participation in co-creation activity increases client satisfaction, e.g., [8,11,24,47], and loyalty toward the service company [8,11,14,23].…”

“…As with satisfaction, customer loyalty is a crucial factor for a company's success, as it represents the customer's willingness to build a long-term relationship with a company, and to recommend it to others [23]. Loyalty is also considered an outcome of value cocreation activity [8,24], so it is reasonable to assume when customers can co-create value, they are more likely to revisit the same hotel again and to recommend it to others as a sustainable one.…”

“…Firstly, this study applies the four-dimension construct of value cocreation in hospitality that might limit the conceptualization of the value co-creation construct in a sustainability context. Further research might test a different higher-order value co-creation measurement model to enhance theoretical contributions by applying it to the sustainability context (e.g., green coproduction, green value-in-use) [12,24]. Moreover, it would be interesting to test the multiple mediation and moderation effects of value co-creation on the existing relationships, considering the degree of customer engagement in the process.…”

“…Last year's research works primarily focused on studying value co-creation outcomes, such as satisfaction and loyalty, e.g., [8,11,23,24]. However, Refs.…”

Efectos de la comunicación integrada de marketing sobre el valor de marca: el rol de la cocreación de valor y el conocimiento ecológico del huésped

“…La industria del turismo ha sido identificada como un contribuyente importante en las emisiones de gases de efecto invernadero; su efecto representa alrededor del 8 % de las emisiones mundiales de dióxido de carbono (Lenzen et al, 2018). Reconociendo esta realidad, muchos hoteles han comenzado a "tomar consciencia ecológica" al incorporar prácticas respetuosas con el medio ambiente para minimizar las emisiones de carbono y la contaminación (Moise et al, 2019;Moise, Gil-Saura and Ruiz-Molina, 2020).…”