Willingness to pay for sustainable hospitality: the roles of green value, moral satisfaction and perceived trust among tourists

Abstract

In recent years, the hospitality sector has faced increasing pressure to adopt environmentally responsible practices. The growing demand for credible sustainability practices has reshaped the competitive environment in the hospitality industry. Although tourists frequently endorse sustainability in principle, their actual willingness to pay for such services often falls short. The objective of this thesis was to investigate how green value and moral satisfaction shape willingness to pay for sustainable hospitality, and whether perceived trust in sustainability claims moderates these relationships.

The research applied the Stimulus–Organism–Response (S-O-R) framework to capture how sustainability cues are processed by consumers. Green value and moral satisfaction were examined as internal evaluations driving willingness to pay, with perceived trust incorporated as a moderating factor to account for skepticism toward sustainability claims. Data were collected through a structured survey of 339 international tourists staying in sustainability-oriented hospitality establishments in Phuket, Thailand. The dataset was analyzed using confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling to assess the validity of the constructs and evaluate the hypothesized effects.

The results indicate that green value is positively associated with tourists’ willingness to pay for sustainable hospitality services. In contrast, moral satisfaction alone does not significantly predict willingness to pay. However, both motivational factors are significantly conditioned by perceived trust in sustainability claims. Specifically, the findings show that sustainability-related value perceptions and moral motivations are more likely to translate into willingness to pay when trust in the credibility of sustainability practices is high. The results suggest that sustainability initiatives in hospitality are more likely to support premium pricing when they are communicated credibly and framed as delivering tangible guest value, rather than relying on ethical appeal alone.

Overall, this research highlights that the economic viability of sustainability in hospitality depends less on ethical appeal alone and more on the combination of perceived value and trust. The findings suggest that sustainability initiatives are most likely to support willingness to pay when they are experienced by guests as delivering tangible or experiential benefits and when sustainability claims are perceived as credible. For applied practitioners, this highlights that sustainability becomes commercially meaningful only when it is both trustworthy and relevant to guests’ evaluations, rather than positioned solely as a moral or symbolic commitment.