Green marketing in hotels shows increased guest satisfaction

 The Business Case for greening

The idea of implementing sustainability methods into a business has become increasingly a common practice amongst businesses and ‘greening’ has become a major brand differentiators that many businesses are acting upon in order to stand out amongst their competitors (Areseculeratne & Yazdanifard, 2014).

This is also true among the hotel sector globally. ‘Greening’ is understood to mean increasing overall environmental performance by reducing waste, water and energy. Additionally, the consumer is interested in green hotels. A survey of more than 700 U.S travelers conducted by TripAdvisor (2012), suggested that 71 percent of the respondents planned to make eco-friendly choices in the next 12 months while, 65 percent did so in the 12 month period preceding the survey. Additionally a study done by Mensah and Mensah (2013), found that the majority of consumers surveyed was more likely to book with a hotel that has a responsible environmental attitude. They also found that the majority of tourists have a positive attitude towards environmental management by hotels.

What is unknown however is if the marketing of such environmental practices actually benefits the hotels.

But does green marketing help the bottom line?

In a study conducted by Franco et al, (2014) at Ryerson University, researchers found that 76 % of boutique hotels said that green marketing had a positive impact on their business in general. Additionally 88% of accommodations felt that green practices were ‘Important or Very Important” for their success. Accommodations, however, do not track how much they specifically spend on marketing their ‘green’ achievements (49% could not give an exact figure).

In order to analyze if there were any impacts or more specifically, any benefits from green marketing, the accommodations were asked to rate how green marketing has impacted their business in general. There was a statistical significance when comparing the allocation of revenue to marketing and guest satisfaction (p value =0.014). Additionally, accommodations saw a positive impact when they allocated revenue towards green marketing (p value = 0.05). There was also no significant specific benefit to increased average daily rate (ADR), profit or length of stay as there was no correlation between these factors.

When examining actual practices, the most common environmental practices included water and energy efficient methods where 87 percent of the respondents have applied water efficient showerheads in each guest bathroom, 90 percent had a linen reuse program and 66 percent of respondents have efficient heating/air conditioning systems. More advanced green practices were not as well implemented as only 50% of hotels track their actual water use and only 7% of respondents used solar panels.

Interestingly, hotels did not necessarily obtain certifications to promote their environmental practices. Sixty percent of accommodations claimed they had obtained some sort of green certification that included such labels as LEED, ISO, Green Key, Green Globe or Green Seal.

The main barriers or impediments to implementing green practices were financial (45%) or motivating employees to follow practices (25%). 

Save money and boost reputation

The recent study by Franco et al (2014) shows that it is evident that there is a positive impact when accommodations allocate a percentage of revenue towards green marketing. It supports the notion that if society has a vested interest in environmental issues, it can lead many businesses, including hotels to change their practices (Hu, 2012). Will green marketing alone push industry to improve their ‘greeness’? Perhaps not although this recent research is positive. What is not disputed however is that accommodations can save large amounts of money in costs as well as boost their reputation in the marketplace by monitoring how they are impacting the environment.