FACTORS THAT AFFECT CUSTOMER INTENTION TO REVISIT GREEN HOTELS: THE CASE OF ABU DHABI

Given the Abu Dhabi 2008 Estidama sustainability initiative and the Abu Dhabi Economic Vision 2030, hospitality is one of the sectors that can contribute most significantly to the long-term economic growth of Abu Dhabi and have the greatest impact on its environmental and natural resources. The results of this study will enable decision-makers to understand why consumers choose green hotels over conventional hotels. The purpose is to expand existing knowledge by investigating the factors that influence customer intention to revisit green hotels from four perspectives: the self-perspective, the prosocial perspective, the business-to-business marketing perspective, and the consumer-to-consumer marketing perspective. The purpose is achieved by developing and testing a framework that integrates the theory of planned behavior (TPB) in an extended form, value belief norm (VBN) theory, corporate identity mix theory (CIMT), and intention to spread word-of-mouth (WOM). This study adopts a positivist research philosophy and uses a quantitative approach to validate the 30 hypotheses empirically. The measurement instrument is a questionnaire distributed to individuals over the age of 18 who have visited an environmentally responsible hotel during the past three years. Data collected from 316 respondents are analyzed using the structural equation modeling package AMOS 28. The results indicate that the integrated framework has good predictive power for consumer intention to revisit green hotels. Environmental concerns, willingness to make a sacrifice for the environment, and willingness to pay more for green hotels are found to have an influence on the TPB constructs, with a willingness to pay more having the greatest impact. Attitude toward green hotels was the key driver behind consumer intention to revisit green hotels in Abu Dhabi, followed by intention to spread WOM about green hotels, perceived behavioral control toward green hotels, subjective norms toward green hotels, a sense of obligation toward green hotels, and hotel corporate image, in that order. These findings contribute to research in the context of the hospitality sector from a green marketing perspective