Framing of the research. In recent years, hospitality and tourism literature has devoted greater attention to the role of hotel green practices and green image in affecting guests’ intention to return, recommend and spread positive word-of-mouth. However, disseminate on the website sustainability information is still a challenge for hoteliers due to both an elusive nature of the sustainability concept and a vague operationalization of the green brand image construct. Purpose of the paper. This paper investigates how luxury hotels present and deliver information about their sustainability efforts on their website in order to identify best practices. Methodology. This paper employs content analysis to extract the main topics from the sustainability information published by luxury hotels on their website. The luxury hotels chosen for the analysis were identified using the list of DUCO Italy 2021 participants. Results. Only 37 percent of the sampled luxury hotels included a website section regarding their sustainability efforts. Sustainability discourse revolves around five subtopics: social and environmental commitment; energy efficiency, conservation and management; sustainability credentials on the web page; sustainability performance; and waste management priorities. Research limitations. This study focuses only on the web sites of a list of 197 luxury hotels based in Italy. Some of these companies may have disseminated information about their sustainability effort on other channels, such as social media. Furthermore, this study is based on a text corpus collected in January 2022, web page information can be modified at any time. Managerial implications. This study is important for luxury hotels managers because it shows the main subtopics employed by hoteliers to talk about their sustainability commitment. Originality of the paper. There is not a specific research that analyses the sustainability disclosures published by luxury hotels on their websites; hence, this paper attempted to fill this gap.
Disclosing green brand identity to shape the green image. A content analysis of the website’s sustainability section of luxury hotels in Italy
MAINOLFI G;
2022-01-01
Abstract
Framing of the research. In recent years, hospitality and tourism literature has devoted greater attention to the role of hotel green practices and green image in affecting guests’ intention to return, recommend and spread positive word-of-mouth. However, disseminate on the website sustainability information is still a challenge for hoteliers due to both an elusive nature of the sustainability concept and a vague operationalization of the green brand image construct. Purpose of the paper. This paper investigates how luxury hotels present and deliver information about their sustainability efforts on their website in order to identify best practices. Methodology. This paper employs content analysis to extract the main topics from the sustainability information published by luxury hotels on their website. The luxury hotels chosen for the analysis were identified using the list of DUCO Italy 2021 participants. Results. Only 37 percent of the sampled luxury hotels included a website section regarding their sustainability efforts. Sustainability discourse revolves around five subtopics: social and environmental commitment; energy efficiency, conservation and management; sustainability credentials on the web page; sustainability performance; and waste management priorities. Research limitations. This study focuses only on the web sites of a list of 197 luxury hotels based in Italy. Some of these companies may have disseminated information about their sustainability effort on other channels, such as social media. Furthermore, this study is based on a text corpus collected in January 2022, web page information can be modified at any time. Managerial implications. This study is important for luxury hotels managers because it shows the main subtopics employed by hoteliers to talk about their sustainability commitment. Originality of the paper. There is not a specific research that analyses the sustainability disclosures published by luxury hotels on their websites; hence, this paper attempted to fill this gap.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
