Environmental Sustainability on Tourist Hotels’ Image Development

Tsai-Chiao Wang,Ying-Sheng Yao,Jen-Son Cheng,Hsin-Yu Shih,Ming-Lang Tseng,Ta-Wei Tang,Chia-Liang Tsai

doi:10.3390/su11082378

Abstract

Previous studies are lacking that explore the added values of sustainable practices perceived by consumers. To achieve a balanced development of economy and environmental protection, tourist hotels should develop a service differentiation strategy based on the sustainable practices. By examining the environmental characteristics and performing art in marketing images of a tourist hotel that are attractive to customers, this study built on the attention restoration theory and triple-bottom-line perspective, and employed the eye-tracking analysis technique to investigate the effect of image characteristics on customers’ visual attention. Sixty-three individuals participated in the experiment and observed the performing arts images. This study confirmed that, first, a natural image could attract more of customers’ visual attention than a built image. In particular, the coupling of nature and performing arts can get the most visual attention from customers. Second, older adults prefer natural images, but younger adults do not. However, there is no significant difference in the impact of gender on the customer’s visual attention. Those findings imply that tourist hotels should use the marketing image design to highlight the value-added services derived from environmental protection.

Highlights

Sustainability is one of the key factors influencing customer perception, decision making [1], satisfaction, loyalty, and willingness to pay [2,3], because customers pay more attention to environmentally friendly characteristics of products and services [4]
Research in the green hotel sector confirms that sustainability can help hotels build a good image [5], enhance guest satisfaction, stimulate consumer behavioral intentions to stay at hotels [1,2,5], and even increase consumers’ willingness to pay extra premiums [2]
To explore the impact of the hotel’s daily sustainability activities on improving service images and added value, the purpose of this study is to explore the impact of environmental cues in marketing imagery on consumer visual attention, and examine how customers’ personal predispositions play roles in the relationships between the marketing pictures and visual attention

Summary

Introduction

Sustainability is one of the key factors influencing customer perception, decision making [1], satisfaction, loyalty, and willingness to pay [2,3], because customers pay more attention to environmentally friendly characteristics of products and services [4]. Current research in the field of sustainability is still insufficient for research on how hotels develop green positioning strategies to capture target market segments [5]. The triple-bottom-line perspective is often used to explore how sustainable activities promote balanced development of environmental, social, and economic aspects. Environmental dimensions focus on reducing the negative impact of operations on the environment. Economic dimensions focus on how hotels should generate and maintain long-term benefits when hotels have a negative impact on the environment [6,7]. To fill the gap between the sustainability activities and the marketing image, this study is based on the triple-bottom-line perspective to explore the contribution of sustainable development to the green positioning strategy and image of tourist hotels

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion