Consumers’ environmental behaviour towards staying at a green hotel: Moderation of green hotel knowledge

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between returning consumer environmental behaviour and tourists’ propensity to stay in a green hotel, particularly in the Malaysian context. Next, the influence of a moderating variable (i.e. green hotel knowledge) on returning tourists’ propensity to stay in a green hotel is also examined. Design/methodology/approach – The research used a hierarchical regression for data analysis across a sample of 400 young respondents who stayed at a green hotel at least once in a year. Their participation was purely voluntary. Findings – Empirical analysis via hierarchical regressions confirmed that returning tourists’ intention to stay at a green hotel was influenced positively by perceived behavioural control and attitude. However, the subjective norm was found to be not significantly related to returning tourists’ intention to stay at a green hotel. Research limitations/implications – The current data were only collected from respondents within one area which may not represent the entire population of Malaysia. Hence, it is imperative that sample size be expanded, and wider geographical areas with different cultural values covered to improve generalizability of findings. Practical implications – These empirical results may benefit the hotel industry involved in green initiatives and activities in formulating effective marketing strategies to review the demand of returning consumers to stay in green hotels and evaluate the acceptance level of the returning consumers towards green behaviour. The hotel industry should take its environmental and social responsibility seriously and uphold aspects of energy efficiency, natural resources and environment and indoor environmental quality in business operations in a sustainable manner besides focusing on maximizing profit. Originality/value – The results of this study offer a new forward motion to the findings of prior studies on environmental behaviour, which is not much covered in the literature in the Malaysian context by providing additional information in narrowing the research gap with regard to understanding returning consumers’ intention to stay in green hotels. Next, the proposed framework could be the basis for further research investigating returning consumers’ intention to stay in green hotels, within the Malaysian context