Paint it green: A neuroscientific approach to hotel sustainability and ecological tourism

Abstract

Hoteliers and companies are asked to optimize their budgets and, at the same time, gifting unforgettable experiences to customers who are freely able to express their feedbacks, readable by thousands of potential guests. In addition, the rise of corporate social responsibility (CSR), sustainability, environmental and social issues leads to the necessity to investigate more systematically new business models that respond to these emerging concerns. In order to investigate the impact of sustainability in tourism marketing, a multimethod neuroscientific approach was used to record individuals’ neural activity (electroencephalography, EEG) and autonomic system responses during the exploration of four different environments of a green hotel adopting a sustainability approach. EEG findings showed an increase of beta and theta frequency band activity during individuals’ environments exploration, underlying the presence of cognitive and emotional elaboration processes. Moreover, from autonomic activity, an increase of pulse volume amplitude (PVA) and heart rate (HR) response emerged during the exploration of hotel environments, highlighting emotional engagement and positive emotional response. This research, therefore, contributes to show how responsiveness to sustainability concept within consumer services can improve individuals’ experience enjoyment and customers' well-being condition.