Hotel Guests' Psychological Distance of Climate Change and Environment-Friendly Behavior Intention.

Wansoo Kim,Chul Jeong,Chen Che

doi:10.3390/ijerph19010016

Abstract

Climate change is certainly a global problem that negatively affects all nations, and thus all humans, on the globe. Nevertheless, little is known about people’s perceptions of climate change and its effects on people’s attitudinal and behavioral responses to climate change. The present study successfully addressed how hotel guests’ environment-friendly behavior intention is formed through their self-perception as a member of the global community and their psychological distance of climate change. An online survey was used to collect quantitative data from hotel guests to verify the hypotheses. Our test results supported all the hypotheses in our conceptual model. Consequently, the findings of this study satisfactorily explained how hotel guests form their intention to engage in environment-friendly behaviors while they are staying at hotels.

Highlights

The findings of the current study empirically showed that global identity significantly reduced the psychological distance of climate change
Tested in the hotel industry context, this study revealed that guests’ ascribed responsibility for not acting environment-friendly positively influenced their personal norm for environment-friendly behavior
Guests’ personal norm for environment-friendly behavior positively affected their environment-friendly behavior intention. These results are consistent with the findings of previous research using the norm activation model (NAM) on other environment-friendly behaviors, such as sustainable transport behavior (e.g., [32]), energy conservation behavior (e.g., [33]), and environmental complaint behavior (e.g., [34])

Summary

Introduction

To make tourism on the globe sustainable in the future, it is critical for every participant to be faithful to one’s role. The environment-friendly management of hotels, together with the environment-friendly behaviors of guests, is commonly regarded as the core element of green management [1]. Making hotel operations more environment-friendly is considered one of the optimal marketing strategies, especially in the developed countries, given the growing green consciousness in the mature lodging markets [2]. To be truly environment-friendly hotels, the active engagement of hotel guests in pro-environmental behaviors (e.g., water saving, waste reduction, and towel/linen reuse) is necessary [1,3]

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Discussion

Conclusion