Consumers' willingness to pay for green initiatives of the hotel industry

Consumer attitudes and behavioural intentions towards environmentally sustainable practices in restaurants is an under-explored area in the hospitality literature, despite the growing ‘green’ trend. This article analyses data collected from 455 restaurant customers across five casual dining restaurants to gain insight into consumer attitudes towards, and willingness to pay more for, restaurants that engage in ‘green’ practices. The findings illustrate that there is an unfilled market niche for ‘green’ restaurants, as customers care about restaurants protecting the environment and would be willing to pay more to offset any additional costs associated with ‘green’ practices.

Exploring Consumer Perceptions of Green Restaurants in the US

A deeper understanding of customers’ desire for and participation in green activities can lead to organizations designing more efficient and effective green programs. This research finds that the guests’ assessment of the importance of being environmentally friendly has the greatest effect on their intention to stay in a green hotel. Second, the research identifies the following customer barriers to participation: inconvenience, perceptions of cost cutting, and decreased luxury—all of which significantly affect consumers’ intention to stay at a green hotel or pay more for a room in such a hotel. Third, the results show that customers believe that hotels should have certain green practices, but did not consider it important to stay in a hotel that actually maintains the thirteen green practices tested here. Fourth, the results find that customers behave with greater environmental responsibility at home than they do in a hotel. Among the implications of these findings is the idea that hotel managers’ commun...

Eco-friendly Attitudes, Barriers to Participation, and Differences in Behavior at Green Hotels

The impact of eco-friendly practices on green image and customer attitudes: An investigation in a café setting

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to investigate customers' perceptions and purchase intentions related to green practices in an upscale, green certified restaurant, on a university campus located in the southeastern USA. Design/methodology/approach Design/methodology/approach – The survey was adapted from a previous survey conducted by DiPietro et al. Findings – The results revealed that customers believed that they are knowledgeable about green practices but they would still like to know more about them. Customers also expressed preferences related to restaurants that are environmentally friendly and use environmentally safe products. Moreover, female customers and people with higher education were more conscious regarding green practices. Customers who utilized green practices at home intended to visit green restaurants more often. Research limitations/implications Research limitations/implications – The respondents were sampled from an upscale university restaurant, and were mostly within the age...

Green practices in upscale foodservice operations

Purpose – The paper aims to look at the balanced scorecard (BSC) concept and discuss in what way it should be applied to higher education programs/institutions in the Indian context.Design/methodology/approach – The paper is based on extant literature on the balanced scorecard concept per se, as well as applications of BSC in higher education as reported by other researchers.Findings – The BSC approach offers an institution the opportunity to formulate a cascade of measures to translate the mission of knowledge creation, sharing and utilization into a comprehensive, coherent, communicable and mobilizing framework – for external stakeholders and for one another.Research limitations/implications – In the absence of any specific Indian case study, the possible impact could only be conjectured or deduced.Practical implications – A useful model is proposed that can be adapted with appropriate modifications to the management of tertiary institutions of education in India, whether it be a university, affiliate c...

Balanced scorecards in managing higher education institutions: an Indian perspective

By considering differences in culture and economic conditions in two different countries, India and the United States, this study investigates the psychological factors (consumers' attitudes, behav...

Venkatesh Umashankar

Papers

Balanced scorecards in managing higher education institutions: an Indian perspective

A Comparative Study of Consumers' Green Practice Orientation in India and the United States: A Study from the Restaurant Industry