Is the information on green hotel websites aligned with the drivers affecting customers’ intention to visit green hotels? A mixed-methods approach

ABSTRACT

Understanding enablers and barriers influencing customers’ intention to use green hotels can help managers formulate better online green marketing strategies. However, existing studies fail to capture these aspects. The present multi-method-based multi-study explored customer perspectives from different sources (qualitative interviews of 20 participants and quantitative surveys of 311 respondents) to explore the enablers/barriers and compared it with the website content of 27 green hotels from India (user-generated content). The participants/respondents were mainly Indian tourists who have either stayed in green hotels or have knowledge about green hotels. Study 1 and Study 2 found enablers “value-for-nature” (“environmental preservation”), “voluntary reduction-in-tourist eco-behavior” (“contributes-to-environment”), “emotional values” (“closer-to-nature”), and barriers “traditional” (“operational difficulties”) and “risk” (“expectations-vs-reality”) affecting customers’ intention to use green hotels. However, the website content of green hotels (in Study 3) failed to capture what all green initiatives are implemented and how it will not compromise with the luxury.

了解影响客户使用绿色酒店意愿的因素和障碍,可以帮助管理者制定更好的在线绿色营销策略。然而,现有的研究未能捕捉到这些方面. 本研究基于多种方法, 从不同来源探讨了客户视角(对20名参与者进行定性访谈, 对311名受访者进行定量调查), 以探索促成因素/障碍, 并将其与印度27家绿色酒店的网站内容(用户生成的内容)进行了比较. 参与者/受访者主要是曾入住绿色酒店或了解绿色酒店的印度游客. 研究1和研究2发现,“自然价值”(“环境保护”)、“游客生态行为的自愿减少”(“对环境的控制”)、《情感价值》(“对自然的封闭”)以及“传统”(“运营困难”)和“风险”(“期望与现实”)的障碍影响了客户使用绿色酒店的意愿. 然而,绿色酒店的网站内容(在研究3中)未能捕捉到所有绿色举措的实施情况,以及如何不与奢华妥协.

KEYWORDS:

• Green hotels
• green marketing strategies
• traditional barriers
• value for nature
• tourist eco-behaviors

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.