Sustainability Commitment, New Competitors’ Presence, and Hotel Performance: The Hotel Industry in Barcelona

Abstract

Abstract:The hospitality industry is facing major challenges, among them the new competition from novel forms of supply in the sharing economy. Airbnb, Homeaway, and Niumba, among other websites offering accommodations, are having an important impact in the sector, changing existing conditions and the market for the traditional hospitality industry. In this context, a strategy based in differentiation can help to prevent drops in revenues and profitability. The main objective of this paper is analyse if commitment towards sustainability has a positive impact on financial performance and can be considered a positive strategy in this new environment. The empirical data refer to a sample of hotels in Barcelona, one of the most important tourist cities in Europe. Our results suggest that there is no clear relationship between sustainability and better financial performance; however, sustainability commitment is associated with a minimum size, which can also have positive effects in terms of economies of scale and finally affect profitability. Hotels more committed to environmental issues are located in areas with a lower density of Airbnb apartments, and this geographical distribution can be more positive than a situation of massive tourist concentration in specific areas with negative externalities for neighbours.

The Effect of Environmental Commitment on Financial Performance through Green Innovation

“…The results of this study reject the results of research conducted by Aznar et al (2016). Environmental commitment in the company does not show a significant relationship with the company's performance due to a lack of proactive consumer attitudes so that the differentiation of companies with environmental commitments will not result in better financial performance.…”

“…The results of the Sobel Test and mediation requirements by Baron and Kenny (1986) show that green product innovation is not able to be a link between the influence of environmental commitment on financial performance so that hypothesis 7 (H7) is rejected. This is consistent with research conducted by Grekova et al (2013) and Aznar et al (2016) where green product innovation is not able to be a link between the influence of environmental commitment on financial performance, explaining that additional skills and knowledge are needed to innovate because of the high complexity of green product innovation rather than other innovations.…”

“…This is consistent with research conducted by Ryszko (2016) and Burki and Dahlstrom (2017) which show that green product innovation is a mediating variable. But it is not in line with research conducted by Grekova et al (2013) and Aznar et al (2016) where green product innovation cannot be a link between the influence of environmental commitment on financial performance. Therefore, the hypothesis formulated:…”

Green to Gold: Beneficial Impacts of Sustainability Certification and Practice on Tour Enterprise Performance

“…Only one study found negative impacts [32], however this was presumably due to the rather small geographical scope, as a similar study conducted two years later by the same authors with a larger geographic scope, found a positive impact [29]. Though there has been some uncertainty regarding impact [33,34], the source of the eco-label, that is whether from government or NGOs as compared to corporate or corporate association established eco-labels, has been found to be an indication of credibility and trustworthiness in the green market [33,35].…”

The Future of Hospitality: Impacts of Disruptive Hospitality Models in the Traditional Market

“…Quadro 1 -Artigos selecionados que compõem a revisão sistemática da literatura. (Aznar et al, 2016, Birinci et al, 2018Hajibaba & Dolnicar, 2017;Kljucnikov et al, 2018;Varma et al, 2016;Volgger et al, 2018) Prayag e Ozanne (2018), por outra perspectiva, trabalham a ideia da transição tecnológica por meio da inovação disruptiva. Para os autores, o regime sociotécnico onde ocorre a inovação sempre será resiliente e resistente à mudança, e os nichos que surgem são os responsáveis por confrontar esta resiliência por seu espaço no mercado: "Nós argumentamos que mudanças disruptivas a nível geral criam oportunidades para atores de nichos específicos inovarem nos modelos de meios de hospedagem, tais como a hospedagem compartilhada pessoa-a-pessoa."…”