Guest Engagement in the Environmental Management of Private Hotels in Germany

Abstract

This study is aimed at understanding the current and potential role of a hotel’s guest in its environmental management performance. It is a research-based bachelor thesis made up of a literature review and an empirical study in two parts, involving in total 33 research par-ticipants. The process of composing the paper took place between January and April 2019.

The increasingly severe conditions caused by the ongoing global problematics of pollution and climate change are supposedly among the most urgent current priorities of humankind. In order to go against the pressing deterioration tendency, it is being aimed at reducing the impact of several industries by means of a thorough ecological sustainability strategy, in the shape of a number of practices that form part of a hotel’s environmental management, like water saving installations.

At the same time, the modern consumer society gradually shifts towards an economic form of co-creation with the consumers seeing themselves in a more active role. Besides that, a considerable share of today’s population is showing an increasing concern and conscious-ness for ecological issues and for finding a way to solve those. Therefore, ecological hotel businesses are advised to make use of not only the society’s favourable attitudes towards environmental initiatives, but also their readiness to engage in those. However, how does that work in practice? Which aspects need to be considered? Which type of guests would be willing to get engaged, and which setting does the hotel have to provide for them to be ready and able to do so? Those are the questions this thesis aims to answer.

With the pursuit of reaching this objective, a qualitative study of two parts has been execut-ed: First, a series of expert interviews with seven hotel representatives of, in this case, pri-vate hotels in Germany, and after that, for validating purposes and in order to grasp the guest perspective, four focus group discussions among 26 university students.

Regarding the study results, it can be said that, despite there being room to improve, the increase in society’s environmental consciousness and a change in behaviour have been confirmed. It was further made clear that guests do not generally hinder a hotel’s environ-mental strategy. It appears to be crucial to differentiate between distinct guest groups, as some guests can be classified as responsible guests, who are willing to engage stronlgy and even pay more if there is added value. In terms of guest engagement, the standard practice is, as expected, the towel and linen policy. However, some new engagement forms have developed, like involving guests in an energy transition, offering educational walks, or sowing vegetables together. In any case it seems as though the right way of communica-tion is key, where finger-wagging does not work, and it is about a customer-oriented way of selling it, through gamification or creativity for instance. Not only is that part of a new image of ecological hospitality, there also appears to be a new definition of luxury rooted in ecolog-ical offerings, which is about health, relaxation - re-connecting with nature.