Pro-environmental behaviour of hotel guests: Application of the Theory of Planned Behaviour and social norms to towel reuse

Abstract

This paper presents a scenario-based experimental study carried out to examine the pro-environmental behaviour of hotel guests. Using data from surveys of 438 respondents, we tested Ajzens’ Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) to explain the decision-making process and the influence of social normative interventions on intention formation regarding towel reuse. Based on theoretical support, a refined TPB model was created, incorporating past behaviour construct. The results revealed that behavioural intentions did not statistically differ between four groups of customers who were exposed to four types of messages: injunctive, descriptive, combined normative and the standard hotel message. Structural equation analysis disclosed that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioural control positively affected hotel guests’ intention to reuse a towel. Further investigation indicated direct and indirect effects of past behaviour on core TPB variables while a refined model showed a better fit to the data and greater predictive power than the original TPB.