The impact of environmental practices and communication on guest behavior: examining EU-Ecolabel in Portuguese hotels

Sinceconsumers’ concern toward environmental sustainability is rapidly growing,businesses are providing environmentally responsible products and services. Thehospitality industry is developing voluntary-based tools in order... [ view full abstract ]

Sinceconsumers’ concern toward environmental sustainability is rapidly growing,businesses are providing environmentally responsible products and services. Thehospitality industry is developing voluntary-based tools in order to reduce itsenvironmental impacts and to satisfy the increasing market segment of greencustomers. Therefore, the commitment toward sustainability may represent forhoteliers a strategy to increase competitiveness and, simultaneously, mitigatetheir impact on the natural environment. In this context, third-party certifiedecolabels ensure hotel compliance with specific environmental performancecriteria and offer a reliable communication to their guests. The studyinvestigates whether environmental practices implemented by EU-Ecolabelcertified hotels contribute significantly to the formation of guest positivebehavioral intention toward green hotels. During 2017, a survey was conductedwith guests of two Portuguese hotels awarded with EU-Ecolabel, followed by semi‑structuredinterviews with hotel managers. The questionnaire’s items were selected afterexamining the existing literature, while the semi‑structured interview wasadministered to follow-up on the analysis of the questionnaire results. A totalof 152 (91 from Hotel 1 and 61 from Hotel 2) questionnaires were usable andemployed in the analysis. We chose Partial Least Square Structural EquationModelling (PLS-SEM) modeling to estimate the structural equation models and totest the hypothesis, and the SmartPLS software to build models and assess theirvalidity. Four out of the five tested hypothesis were accepted. Results show apositive relationship (1) between environmental practices implemented byeco-labeled hotels and loyalty towards green hotels. Moreover, guests’perceived importance of sustainability in tourism positively influences (2) theperformance evaluation of environmental communication and (3) loyalty towardgreen hotels. However, (4) the performance evaluation of green practices is notinfluenced by guests’ perceived importance of sustainability in tourism, but(5) is strongly influenced by a clear environmental communication. Researchfindings are valuable both for hotel managers and decision makers. To hotelmanagers by clarifying the role of environmental communication in the guests’recognition of environmental performance improvement efforts; and to decisionmakers by confirming the relationship between the implementation ofenvironmental practices and the raise of market awareness and thus, of loyaltytowards green hotels. Results of the study also confirm that the perceivedimportance of sustainability in tourism influences guest loyalty towards greenhotels and their evaluation of environmental communication. By reinforcing theimportance of an effective environmental communication to clearly disclosehotels’ achievements toward sustainability, we can affirm that this ability isconsidered essential to capture the potential competitive advantage of anenvironmental strategy.