Goals
This project aims to study the relationship between the rules introduced by the management of hotels in a particular city and the environmental behavior of hotel customers. This can help to determine what influencers can be used to guide people who come to the city to more environmentally friendly behaviors. Thus, the tourism and service industries can significantly support the ecological situation in the region in which they operate. Tourists arriving in another city or even another country tend to care less about the environment and ecology in the cities they visit, which can lead to a deterioration in the situation in this sector (Ngoc, 2023). In this regard, it is necessary to determine the degree of influence of the hotel’s environmental policy on guests’ behavior.
Rationale
The hospitality industry is one of the main environmental polluters due to its constant atmospheric emissions. They can occur due to constant cooking, washing, and using large amounts of fuel and electricity. In addition, hotels also produce a large amount of garbage, which is taken to special landfills for cleaning. However, a few hotels pay due attention to the sorting and proper waste processing, ultimately leading to much pollution in nature. The hotel’s environmental policy should aim to reduce the carbon footprint of the enterprises as much as possible. The hotel produces a fairly large amount of harmful emissions, but it is also important to consider the role of the human factor. A large amount of waste appears in the environment due to hotel guests’ behavior.
This state of the situation around hotels and their guests obliges the managers of these establishments to develop and introduce the necessary measures and rules. With their help, it is possible to achieve a better result in the guests’ behavior in relation to the environment and the environment. However, many guests may need to pay more attention to their policies, and therefore, it is necessary to find out how effective the introduction of any policies can be. They can properly impact people, and then one can improve the existing ecological situation. Accordingly, studies on this subject are necessary to evaluate the usefulness of introducing specific policies for good environmental behavior.
Indication of Theoretical Approach
The study’s theoretical basis will be the Theory of Planned Behavior, which allows us to connect beliefs with behavior. This theory can help to understand human behavior from some points of view for more comprehensive coverage. At the same time, people can exercise control over certain patterns of behavior, which indicates that they can perceive certain norms of behavioral control. For a person to start acting, they need to subconsciously assess the risks that could arise due to their actions. In addition, in the theory under consideration, there is the concept of behavioral intent, which means that a person must compare how much their behavior can lead to the desired result.
The theory of planned behavior is widely used to explain various behavioral patterns in a wide range. The perception of behavioral control is necessary to analyze how people can fit into certain frames intelligently. In this regard, hotels should have a strict policy regarding waste sorting and other aspects aimed at cleansing and caring for the environment. Pro-environmental behavior can also be developed in guests with the help of the theory of planned behavior. Thus, it is necessary to consider this aspect in the methodological part of the work.
Literature Review
Many authors have studied the sustainable behavior of hotel guests and how it should be developed. Qin (2022) considers the problems of the individual environmental behavior of people who travel. The scientist presents a special social scale, which represents specific types of tourist ecological behavior. The article’s author also considers various information accumulated through interviews to address the problem of bad environmental behavior.
Authors such as Nakagawa, Mori, Nishimura, and Hayashi (2019) have considered important aspects of environmental behavior among urban populations. They argue that an important factor that can help achieve the desired behavior is understanding the difference that exists at the moment. Appropriate measures should be developed depending on how tourists misbehave about the environment.
The literature also pays attention to various aspects of forming environmentally friendly behavior. Scholars Wu, Font, and Liu (2021) point out that it is important to use moral obligation and deviance to influence people effectively. Moral variables can be significantly adjusted by giving them the proper external influence. Researchers Xu, Li, and Chi (2021) argue that the study of altruism can help to understand better the reasons and motives for certain actions of people. Scientists have found that people’s pro-environmental behavior can be linked at an individual or organizational level.
Proposed Methodological Approach
Employee Interviews
To investigate hotel policies’ impact on guests, the right solution may be to do the work using qualitative and quantitative methods. This will help to cover a wide sample of respondents better and analyze their information. Interviews with employees of several hotels should be the first stage of the study, which will help to get a general idea of what level of environmental concern is present and takes center stage.
Interviews will be conducted completely anonymously with the guarantee of further safety of all personal information. The information employees of different hotels can provide will be carefully processed to identify common trends observed in the context of sustainable behavior policies. Fifteen interviews will be conducted as part of the study and recorded in audio format.
Guest Surveys
Another method of doing the work used in this paper is to survey hotel guests to find out their opinions on environmental policies. This survey will significantly differ from the interview and will be distributed through a questionnaire to all hotel guests. In this way, one can significantly reduce the time to reach more participants and not disturb them with voice interviews. Questionnaires should include information that may be useful for the theory of planned behavior. This means that in addition to the actual attitude of guests to the norms of environmental behavior, questions about personal attitudes should be included in the questionnaires.
Reference List
Nakagawa, Y., Mori, K., Nishimura, T., and Hayashi, K. (2019). ‘Tie to community as a proxy of competency to fill the gap between intended and actual pro-environmental behavior in urban settings’, Social Design Engineering Series. Web.
Ngoc, N. M. (2023). ‘Sustainable integration in Vietnam’s tourism industry’, World review of entrepreneurship management and sustainable development. Web.
Qin, Q. (2022). ‘Urban travelers’ pro-environmental behaviors’, Polyu Electronic Theses. Web.
Wu, J., Font, X., and Liu, J. (2021). ‘Tourists’ pro-environmental behaviors: Moral obligation or disengagement?’ Journal of Travel Research, 60(4), pp. 735-748. Web.
Xu, Y., Li, W., and Chi, S. (2021). ‘Altruism, environmental concerns, and pro-environmental behaviors of urban residents: a case study in a typical Chinese city’, Frontiers in Psychology, 12. Web.