Guest dynamics and perceptions towards environmentally-friendly practices in hotels in KwaZulu- Natal, South Africa.

Hotels provide resource intensive services with excessive consumption of non-durable goods such as electricity and water that has a permanent footprint on the environment. This large consumption of natural resources has induced the hotel sector to explore sustainable practices to protect the environment, since their existence is dependent on the environment. Increasingly, the hotel sector has begun to adopt environmentally friendly practices in their daily operations to gain positive public attention and more especially, to fulfill the needs of guests for an environmentally friendly product. Environmental concerns have also brought changes in consumer behavior with more environmental awareness, and preferences for greener or eco-friendly hotels, pressurizing hotels to adopt green principles. Although there have been numerous international studies that have examined individual travelling behavior related to the environment, very few have been undertaken in the African context on hotel environmental practices and guest preferences for green products. The aim of this paper is, therefore, to analyze guest perceptions towards environmental measures at hotels in a developing country context, South Africa. A simple random sample of twenty, star-graded hotels and a convenience sample of 20 guests from each hotel in KwaZulu-Natal, using a structured questionnaire to obtain primary quantitative and qualitative data, was implemented. Some of the main findings were that demographic characteristics of consumers are significant factors in understanding consumer behavior; a higher proportion of females were willing to pay more for environmentally sound hotels and most guests considered price was a key attribute when choosing hotels. Moreover, over half the guests gave preference to hotels that had environmental accreditations, and a large number believed that the current star grading should incorporate green issues and grading determined by environmental actions