Do hotels' circular economy efforts really attract guests?
(A2022-107486)

AUTHORS

Florent Girardin, Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland; Luciano Lopez, Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland; Marie Gillet, Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, HES-SO University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland

ABSTRACT

As one of the engines for economic development, the tourism and hospitality industries have many positive effects on trade and employment but may harm the environment given that their business models tend to be based on the linear economy as opposed to the circular economy (CE). In this context, our research empirically examines the effects of hotels’ specific CE practices on guests’ general attitude towards those hotels as well as their willingness to pay a price premium (WTP). We select the most relevant hotels’ CE practices from the literature and conduct a 2 (3 stars vs. 5 stars) X 7 (6 CE practices + control) between-subject experiment where respondents are exposed to a fictitious hotel website and asked to evaluate their attitude and WTP for that hotel. Our results first reveal that WTP is only affected by CE practices with a rethink or redesign dimension. Second, they show that CE practices do not have positive effects on guests’ attitude towards hotels and can even have negative effects for specific CE practices. Third, our results suggest that the hotel category (i.e. 3-star vs 5-star) does not impact the effect of CE practices on hotels’ guests attitude and WTP.