1. Introduction
The growth of the tourism sector goes hand in hand with its increasing environmental impact [
1]. Tourism activity and the environment have always had a complex and dual relationship: on the one hand, tourism depends on the environment to attract tourist flows; on the other hand, the environment depends on tourism, as it generates negative impacts on the tourism ecosystem, with the risk of damaging it permanently [
2]. It is therefore necessary to find a balance between the economic profitability of the tourism sector and the quality of the ecosystem in which tourism activities take place [
3]. Tourism, as a dynamic industry subordinated to the changes in consumer preferences, has been influenced by the development of the sustainability concept [
4]. In fact, part of the tourism demand has become more and more interested in a type of consumption that is sensitive to the environmental protection and to the respect of local populations’ cultures [
5]. After this change in consumption styles, all the actors of the tourism system (tourism industry, local populations, non-profit organizations, and local bodies) have worked both for the identification of strategies to satisfy these new needs, and to communicate to the public this new sustainable approach to tourism, to make customers able to perceive the benefit of their choices. The assimilation of the concept of sustainable tourism is a long and challenging process: in fact, it requires a gradual collective path involving all the stakeholders operating in the industry. In this context, the lodging industry has been a leader in implementing sustainable practices and establishing environmental accreditations and ecolabels [
6], also in response to the changing in consumers’ preferences [
7]. Indeed, consumers are increasingly looking for environment-friendly lodging options but they are also feeling uninformed about whether hotels are truly eco-friendly [
8]. To encourage this involvement, ecolabels are useful tools for hotel facilities, as they support the management in meeting specific environmental performance criteria and help increase the business success of the hotel, thanks to the positive effects they have on the green image of the facility. Green techniques should lower operational costs for tourism facilities (e.g., through water and energy savings) while also adding value to customers in order to be successful [
9]. However, the fundamental difficulty that hotels, marketers, and practitioners face is consumers’ distrust of “greenwashing”. Greenwashing refers to:
“intentionally misleading or deceiving consumers with false claims about a firm’s environmental practices and impact” [
10]. When customers believe a company’s claim is “greenwashed,” they lose faith in the brand, putting its brand equity at risk. As a result, it is critical that customers regard businesses’ initiatives as genuine commitments to sustainability and climate change mitigation. This is particularly critical for the hotel sector, where the term greenwash was created. The term was, indeed, coined by prominent environmentalist Jay Westerveld in a 1986 essay [
11]. The author critiqued the hotels industry practice of promoting the reuse of towels as part of a broader environmental strategy when, in fact, the only driver of the hotels was to promote a cost-saving measure [
12]. In this sense, eco-labels and certification can counterbalance the “distortive effect” of greenwashing and the resulting consumer mistrust by providing acknowledged and recognized certification systems that can offer customers with trustworthy and clear information [
13,
14]. This considered, understanding how consumers perceive and evaluate environmental quality and eco-friendly practices in hotels helps to plan and define win-win strategies for tourism sustainable management. In response to consumers’ increasing environmental concern, particularly when making a purchasing decision [
15], tourism facilities started “
to go green”, adopting more environmentally friendly practices. As a result of consumers’ concern for environmental sustainability, the hospitality industry is also developing voluntary-based tools to reduce its environmental impacts and to satisfy the increasing market segment of green customers. In this context, third-party certified ecolabels ensure hotel compliance with specific environmental performance criteria and offer a reliable communication to their guests. In the Italian context, Legambiente Turismo Ecolabel supports tourism facilities in implementing green practices and in spreading sustainability values to customers and citizens. Starting with the analysis of literature, we propose a conceptual framework to investigate whether green practices implemented by the Italian “Legambiente Turismo” certified hotels contribute significantly to the formation of guest positive behavioral intention toward green hotels. Understanding the role of hotels’ environmental practices is pivotal in the hotel decision-making process and strategy. To clarify this point, a survey was conducted with guests of two Italian hotels awarded with the ecolabel and 335 questionnaires were usable and employed in the analysis, adopting Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) to test the hypotheses. Finally, the paper discusses the results, presents implications both for academics and practitioners, and identifies potential future lines on research on the topic.
3. Research Methods
3.1. Survey Design
A survey was developed and administered to the guests of two hotels to collect data and measure the constructs in the research model. The questionnaire was built following three main steps. Firstly, through an in-depth literature review of previous studies dealing with similar constructs, a preliminary list for the measurement scales was identified. Then, the list of chosen criteria was refined through semi-structured interviews with a panel of ten managers working in hotels who had received the Legambiente Turismo eco-label.
Interviews with hotel managers enabled the dropping of redundant items, reducing the number of items and improving the semantic comprehensibility and the question clarity.
Afterwards, the questionnaire was pretested with 30 hotel guests, randomly chosen, to assess the suitability of the survey to test the hypothesis formulated [
80]. This phase yielded minimal adjustments in phrase wording to increase readability and clarity of the questions. Finally, the authors examined and finalized the questionnaire.
Figure 2 summarizes the process of identification and refinement of the items selected for the questionnaire.
In its final version, the questionnaire consists of five sections. The first section aims to evaluate guest environmental concern. The second aims to measure guest evaluation of hotel environmental communication. In these sections, all items are measured with a 7-point Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
The third is made up of seven items adapted from earlier studies with the purpose of measuring guests’ perceptions of hotel green practices. The items detected in prior studies were combined with conditions that the hotel must meet to receive the Legambiente Turismo eco-label. A Likert-type scale ranging from 1 (poor performance) to 7 (great performance) is used to assess guests’ perceptions of hotel green features.
Six factors make up the fourth segment, which assesses guests’ overall satisfaction, loyalty to the hotel, and loyalty to environmentally friendly hotels. The two measures that evaluate overall satisfaction were taken from Lai and Hitchcock’s studies [
81,
82]. Chi (2011) and Xu and Gursoy (2015) measures were used to shape loyalty metrics such as revisit intention and word of mouth [
79,
83]. Moreover, a scale was derived from Han et al. (2011) and Han and Kim (2010) studies to assess loyalty toward green hotels [
48,
56]. Satisfaction and loyalty are both assessed using a Likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).
Guests’ demographic information (age, gender, length of stay, type of travel), awareness of the hotel’s eco-label, and prior staying in a green hotel are all included in the last part [
61] (
Table 1).
Table 2 will show the measuring scales, with mean values and standard deviations for each item (scale 1 to 7). The questionnaire was first written in Italian and then translated into English. The two versions of the questionnaire were compared to make sure that the Italian and English questions conveyed the same meaning, and both were made available to participants.
3.2. Data Collection
The Legambiente Turismo in 1997 carried out the project “Council for the commitment in defense of the environment”, an agreement between tourist accommodation facilities, institutions, and local administrations, to try to reach a common goal: maintaining quality and comfort tourism services while respecting the environment. Moreover, Legambiente, through the release of an eco-label, is committed to enhancing the environmental footprint of accommodation facilities. Legambiente created a set of guidelines and check lists in which the Decalogue of actions required for the member companies of the association are listed. Legambiente Turismo eco-label aims to qualify the tourist and accommodation facilities through disciplinary measures to reduce their environmental impact, while at the same time increasing the quality of the service and the experience of the guests. In Italy, Legambiente Turismo is the most widespread environmental label [
84], which currently counts 95 hotels awarded with the eco-label [
84].
The two hotels under investigation are certified with the Legambiente Turismo Ecolabel and are located in Tuscany.
Hotel A is three-star hotel certified by 2003 with “Legambiente Turismo” ecolabel. Moreover, the hotel since 2012 uses only energy from renewable sources, which it produces in part through its own photovoltaic system and boasts the prestigious European Ecolabel EU mark (IT/051/018), which certifies the products and services of the European Community with low environmental impact. Finally, in 2022, the hotel obtained Cets2 certification and became the official partner of Europarc and the Tuscan Archipelago National Park.
Hotel B is a family-run hotel surrounded by greenery. The restaurant’s cuisine is at km 0 and for its principles on healthy and organic eating it uses only genuine and natural products, also satisfying vegetarian tastes and dietary needs. The hotel has chosen ecological panels made from 100% recycled wood and with FSC certification for the furnishing of its rooms.
A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed to two Italian hotels that had been awarded the Legambiente Turismo ecolabel after getting clearance from the managers.
The survey was conducted throughout the summer since it appears to be the most appropriate season because it is when the most visitors arrive. After being briefed and told about the study, hotel personnel were asked to deliver the questionnaire to all hotel guests after check-out. Guests were chosen using the convenience sample method, which is commonly used in consumer research. A total of 373 completed questionnaires were collected, with a 74.60 percent response rate. Thirty-eight cases were eliminated because they were either incomplete or unusable in any other way. A total of 335 questionnaires were usable and used in the study (210 from Hotel A and 125 from Hotel B).
In PLS-SEM, the minimum sample size should be 10 times the number of formative indicators used to measure a specific construct or ten times the number of structural paths directed at a specific latent construct.
Table 2 shows that one construct has the most indicators in the measurement model, which is seven. As a result, the sample meets the required criteria [
85].
3.3. Data Analysis
Partial least squares structural equation modelling (PLS-SEM) was used to test the proposed hypotheses [
86]. PLS-SEM is a “regression-based” approach aimed at maximizing the explained variance of the dependent latent constructs [
85]. Recently, PLS-SEM has gained momentum in marketing and other business disciplines, increasing the number of studies utilizing this approach [
87]. Additionally, in recent studies in the sector of hospitality and tourism, empirical applications of PLS-SEM have been employed to examine structural research models [
88,
89]. Compared to traditional covariance-based structural equation modelling (CB-SEM), PLS-SEM is well-suited for assessing complex predictive models under conditions of non-normality and smaller sample sizes [
90]. The fact that the questionnaire’s measures were generated using a Likert scale and the data had a non-normal distribution was one of the grounds for choosing PLS-SEM. PLS-SEM does not require any normality assumptions and is capable of handling non-normal distributions. Additionally, the presented research model has an exploratory nature, and while CB-SEM is better indicated for theory testing [
91], PLS-SEM is more adapted for theory building applications to develop new models or conceptions [
85]. Finally, the mediation analysis proposed in this research works well with PLS. The software SmartPLS (V.3.2.8) was used to create models and assess their validity.
5. Discussion
The results of this work are contributing to the body of literature concerning the role of green practices in influencing customer behavioral intentions. Both theoretical and practical implications can be drawn from the results obtained. Considering that the roles of guest environmental concern and hotel environmental communication have been scarcely studied in the context of Italian environmental certified hotels, this work contributes to enrich the academic literature on the topic. Moreover, the construct of loyalty towards green hotels has been proposed, contributing to establish a new relationship between hotel green practices and this construct and enriching the literature of a new research concept. Eight out of the eleven research hypotheses tested in the research model proposed in this study were accepted.
Results from the study led to the rejection of the hypothesis according to which guests’ environmental concern directly influences their perception of hotel green practices. This result is in contrast with previous studies’ findings [
15,
29]. Academic literature on this topic mostly agreed in assigning at guest environmental concern a predictive role in determining guest appreciation of hotel green practices [
35,
48], even if through a mediator role [
26]. However, the research model confirms that hotel environmental communication plays a full mediation role in the relationship between guest environmental concern and hotel green practices (environmental communication mediates for 93.88 percent of the relationship between these two variables), confirming the study’s hypothesis. This finding confirms the pivotal role of environmental communication in guests’ appreciation of hotel green practices and its ability to exploit and transform the environmental concern of guests in appreciation for the efforts the hotel makes to improve its environmental impact. Through environmental communication, hotels can improve their green image, which has been found to be critical in assisting consumers in forming a positive attitude towards green hotels [
44] and to enhancing guest behavioral intention in terms of word of mouth and willingness to revisit the hotel [
5,
69]. For hoteliers and practitioners, these findings should lead to rethinking their communication strategy. They should continuously inform customers about environmental problems and impacts and through that strengthen guest environmental concern. Additionally, as stated by Kim and Han (2010), they should: “
constantly communicate the positive changes resulting from individuals’ green actions effort and through persuasive communication channels, stressing the ability of each individual customer to decrease environmental deterioration” [
107].
This study demonstrates that hotel environmental communication is positively influenced by visitor environmental concern. These results are consistent with the findings of Chan (2004) and Chan and Lau (2000), who discovered that consumers’ environmental concerns had a major impact on the effectiveness of environmental advertising [
108,
109]. Furthermore, data reveals that guests who are concerned about environmental conservation have a more favorable reaction to environmental advertising than consumers who are less concerned. Moreover, Chan and Han (2014) discovered that environmental concerns influenced customer perceptions toward commercials [
110]. Additionally, according to Penz et al. (2017) and Hu (2012), this study suggests that guest more concerned with environmental problems will better appreciate the efforts of hotels in communicating their environmental strategy and their actions to improve the environmental impacts of their activities [
111,
112]. Finally, guests that are sensitive about the environment will most likely have more information about environmental programs and certifications, and this would lead to being more responsive towards hotel environmental claims and advertisement [
25].
According to the proposed model, hotel environmental communication has a beneficial impact on guests’ perceptions of the hotel’s green practices. There are two main reasons for hotels to communicate their green practices: one is to enhance customers in supporting and participating in the hotel’s in-room green programs (e.g., turning off the lights, reusing towels) [
113,
114]; the other refers to increasing guest knowledge and appreciation of hotel green practices [
115]. In fact, Wang et al. (2017) found that guests are more likely to engage in the hotel environmental programs if the hotel’s commitment is visible and communicated to customers [
39]. Some scholars argued that, for customers, it is important not only what the hotel does, since they would rarely know about that, but what the hotel communicates that it does and how these messages are perceived [
116,
117]. Furthermore, visitors can embody the reasons that prompted the hotel to embrace green practices and participate in the hotel’s green strategy through the hotel’s environmental communications. Hotel environmental communication, according to Terrier and Marfaing (2015), can influence visitors’ environmental commitment and involvement in minimizing environmental impacts [
118]. Green communication can boost environmentally friendly guest behavior and reduces guests’ self-serving behaviors [
69,
113]. Hotel communication of the green practices implemented can also contributes to a positive impact on the corporate image [
119] and green image [
43,
120] that is crucial for firm long-term success, providing a competitive advantage and differentiation market position [
121] and helping to increase sales, attract new investors and employees, and improve customer loyalty [
57]. Lee et al. (2010) found that green hotel’s overall image favorably enhances guests’ behavioral intentions, including willingness to pay a premium, word-of-mouth and revisiting intentions [
5]. In particular, Wang et al. (2018) demonstrated that green image not only positively affects the consumers’ word-of-mouth intention about green hotels but also affects green trust and green satisfaction [
44]. These relations are especially true for “millennials” and female consumers that, if reached with the right communication channels, may be the best targets for green hotels [
45]. Moreover, green hotels’ overall image and green image are central in building a firm’s credibility [
122], and for this reason hoteliers should choose the right communication strategy to increase it [
123,
124]. This is particularly important since, if a hotel guest is confused about what the hotel’s green practices are [
125] or skeptical about the motive for hotels to go green [
45], this may lead to distrusting the hotel green efforts [
126]. In fact, nowadays, consumers are also becoming more critical of hotels’ green practices and increasingly aware of hotels’ greenwashing propensities, and this trend can negatively affect purchase intentions and behavioral intentions [
45]. For this reason, between hoteliers, the phenomenon of “greenhushing” is spreading [
14]. Hotels are under-communicating their sustainability practices to mitigate the negative consequences of a perceived greenwashing from customers and to avoid: “
a potential disconnection between their perception of customer expectations and their own operational position concerning sustainability issues” [
14]. In a related study line, Robinot and Giannelloni (2010) argued that a lack of environmental communication can minimize the chance of visitors negatively evaluating environmental activities, which could lead to potential guest discontent [
9]. In this context, third-party ecolabel and sustainability certification can improve a hotel’s overall image and the credibility of its environmental claims, reducing the danger of being regarded critically by customers for greenwashing [
45]. As a result, adopting clear communication methods to make ecolabels visible and salient to guests can assist customers in understanding the hotel’s environmental practices and clearly recognizing what it does for the environment and why it does it [
111]. Providing guests with this kind of information can also help them become more environmentally conscious [
25]. Furthermore, Pérez and Rodrìguez del Bosque (2014) and Martìnez and Rodrìguez del Bosque (2013) advised managers to share information on key environmental performance indicators, as this could help to increase customer satisfaction and loyalty by establishing a process of identification between the hotel and its guests [
69,
127].
This study’s findings demonstrate a strong link between hotel environmental practices and guest delight. This outcome is consistent with prior research findings showing that eco-friendly hotel policies improve customer satisfaction [
42,
61,
128]. Satisfaction has been defined by Yoon and Uysal (2005) as “
a delightful level of feeling arising from the ability of a product or service to satisfy consumers’ needs, wants, and desires” [
129]. Guest satisfaction is one of the most studied constructs in hospitality research [
44] because of its pivotal role in hotels success and competitive position on the market. Robinot and Giannelloni (2010) investigated the role of a hotel’s green attributes on overall satisfaction. With one exception, the study finds that all environmental attributes fall into the “basic” group. This group covers characteristics that have a detrimental impact on the formation of satisfaction when they are regarded negatively but have no substantial positive impact when they are appraised positively [
9]. In addition, Gao and Mattila (2014) discovered that when service quality is delivered effectively, green activities improve client experience. In service failure situations, however, the favorable impact of being green was not found. Furthermore, they imply that perceived intentions influence customer happiness in green hotels, and that guests are more satisfied with the hotel when they believe the hotel’s objective for going green is to benefit society (public-serving) rather than to generate more revenue (self-serving) [
130]. Additionally, in the context of the lodging industry, Slevitch et al. (2013) investigated the role of “green” attributes in the formation of customer satisfaction. The study showed that the “green” attributes are facilitating attributes, considered as excitement attributes. However, the results also revealed that “green” attributes’ effect on customer satisfaction is moderated by core attributes’ performance [
131].
The role of green practices in influencing satisfaction is particularly important, as satisfaction has been found as a significant antecedent of guest loyalty and guest behavioral intention towards green hotels [
42,
50,
66]. In particular, Wang et al.’s (2018) findings support the hypothesis that customer satisfaction is a significant determinant of repeat behavior intentions such as word-of-mouth intention [
44]. Several scholars argue that customer satisfaction has often been related to guest revisiting intentions [
28,
42,
51]. Furthermore, the results from this study confirm Martínez García de Leaniz (2015) and Shih’s (2018) findings that guest satisfaction is a significant determinant in the formation of customer “green loyalty”, a specific type of loyalty directed towards the general category of green hotels [
43].
Hotel green practices do not directly influence guest loyalty toward the hotel and toward green hotels; in fact, guest satisfaction acts as a full mediator between hotel environmental practices and guest loyalty toward green hotels, and between hotel environmental practices and guest loyalty toward the hotel
Contrary to other studies’ findings, the research hypotheses about the direct positive relation between green practices and guest loyalty towards the hotel and green hotels tested in this model have been rejected. Indeed, previous scholars’ findings have suggested that hotel environmental practices would affect customer loyalty towards the hotel directly [
5,
42,
48] and that guests appreciating the green practices would also develop a favorable loyalty toward this type of hotel [
25,
44,
56]. However, this study found that customer satisfaction fully mediates the relationship between green practices and loyalty towards the hotel (for the 86.08%) and towards green hotels (for the 86.02%).
7. Conclusions
This analysis leads to accepting eight out of the eleven hypotheses tested. Results from the model testing show the role played by guest environmental concern in influencing guests’ perception of hotels’ green communication. This feature is of particular relevance to hoteliers because it demonstrates how guests’ concern for the environment lead them to see the hotel’s efforts to communicate these green policies more effectively [
25,
34,
35]. As a result, by identifying these niche markets, they can improve their outcomes by raising consumers’ environmental concerns and informing uneducated customers about the harmful environmental implications that non-environmentally certified hotel enterprises have [
25]. In addition, the model shows that guests’ perceptions of hotel environmental communication have a beneficial impact on their perceptions of green practices. As a result, hotels should adopt communication strategies to make eco-labels and their green initiatives visible and prominent to visitors in order for them to understand and interpret the information connected with an ecolabel. According to Wang et al. (2017), communication aids consumers in observing a hotel’s engagement to environmental sustainability by visibly showing the hotel’s efforts. Engaging in environmental campaigns and green marketing, as well as investing in advertising on current sustainability programs, such as ecolabels, is the strategy for taking this path [
132]. Managers may also work with governments and local municipalities to promote tourist awareness by informing and educating them about the tourism industry’s environmental impact [
32,
57]. Because this relationship is totally mediated by hotels’ environmental communication, the model does not confirm a direct association between visitor environmental concern and green practices appreciation. Green practices must be publicized in order to be recognized [
39,
40], by implementing a proactive green marketing plan that includes all essential stakeholders [
38]. Furthermore, because environmental communication affects this relationship, it is critical to place a greater emphasis on the establishment of a shared identity between the guest and the hotel, as well as an affective relationship, rather than simply passively informing customers, as indicated by [
5,
33,
69]. This has significant implications for hotel sustainability management, since the findings show that customers with a high level of environmental awareness are more likely to have a positive mindset toward green activities, making it easier to choose ecolabel facilities over ordinary ones [
35], and to develop positive behavioral intentions [
35]. Furthermore, the results of the model testing reveal that customers appreciate the hotel’s environmental commitment, which influences their pleasure. Customer satisfaction, on the other hand, totally mediates the relationship between green practices and loyalty toward the hotel and green hotels, and there is no direct beneficial effect between hotel green practices and loyalty toward the hotel and green hotels, according to this study. These findings have meaningful implications for hoteliers and practitioners, since guests’ loyalty towards the hotel passes through their satisfaction with the hotel. Satisfaction with the hotel is a multi-attribute construct, only partially explained by environmental attributes, and it is influenced by several variables, including service quality and consumers’ attitudes [
133]. In this sense, hoteliers should concentrate their efforts not only on green practices but also in delivering a high-quality service. Indeed, if non-environmental features are not delivered correctly, satisfaction and, as a result, loyalty may suffer. As a result, green practices may improve customer satisfaction only if there is no service failure [
130].