Environment Friendly Practices Adopted in Hotels and their Impact on Customer Satisfaction: A Critical Review of the Literature and Research Implications for the Hospitality Industry

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to investigate various environment-friendly practices implemented by the hospitality industry while assessing their impact on customer satisfaction. Thirty-one papers were downloaded with keywords such as “environment friendly,” "customer satisfaction," "customer loyalty," and "sustainability" from various online research databases like Google Scholar, Science Direct, ResearchGate, and Emerald Insights from 2000 to 2020. These papers were critically analysed in terms of the different variables associated with the environmentally friendly measures used in hotels. The study will assist hospitality industry managers in developing appropriate marketing strategies that include green measures in order to achieve guest retention, which will result in increased profits and goodwill for the hotels. In addition, the study sheds light on different variables such as demographics, willingness to pay, and visit intention in relation to green practices and guest satisfaction. The findings reveal that the environment-friendly green initiatives adopted in hotels have a positive effect on customer satisfaction. Moreover, the study emphasises how green practices play a key role in achieving customer loyalty through the mediating effect of customer satisfaction. A model of the positive effects of hotel employee training on environment-friendly practices has also been proposed. The willingness to pay for the environment-friendly initiatives reflect a rather contradictory result since a majority of the guests expect hotels to bear the cost of the green initiatives implemented.