Purchase intention and consumption behaviour of guests towards four- and five-star green hotels in Malaysia

• Main Author: Sinnappan, Punitha
• Format: Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: 2017
• Online Access: http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/70644/1/FEM%202017%2026%20-%20IR.pdf; http://psasir.upm.edu.my/id/eprint/70644/
• Institution: Universiti Putra Malaysia

Inadequate information related to green purchase intention among hotel customers has become a key barrier for hoteliers in developing a sound marketing strategy. In the same vein, consumer’s intention to purchase is rarely translated to consumption behaviour and this remains poorly understood especially within the hotel context. Given this scenario, the purpose of this study is to identify the factors that would affect green purchase intention of hotel customers and the factors that would moderate the relationship between green purchase intention and green consumption behaviour. In support of previous literature, this study confirms the need for a new way of thinking that takes into consideration the fragmented nature of the industry and a collective and conscious participation of all key stakeholders to solve the environment related behaviours. Hence, this study considers a hotel’s marketing strategies (i.e., green marketing mix and green brand image), a consumer’s psychographic characteristics (i.e., environmental concern, global environmental connectedness, perceived consumer effectiveness, perceived personal relevance and altruism) and the perceived role of government as important determining factors that would shape one’s green purchase intention. Next, the characteristics of consumers themselves are believed to be the reason for consumers to not engage in green consumption even though they have such an intention. Thus, psychographic and socio-demographic characteristics of consumers are tested in this study to determine if these factors have an impact on the intention-behaviour relationship. This study applies a quantitative method in which a structured self-administered questionnaire is used. A total of 783 usable questionnaires are obtained from hotel customers through stratified random sampling technique. Data is analysed using the Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) technique via the IBM SPSS Statistics and IBM SPSS Amos for Windows, version 22.0. The causal path analysis reveals that all seven elements of green marketing mix (i.e., product, price, place, promotion, employee, process and physical evidence) have positive influence on green purchase intention. Next, the result also reveals that the regression path from green brand image to green purchase intention is significant. This is followed by analysis of the causal paths between green marketing mix elements and green brand image. The results show that green brand image is significantly affected by product, place, promotion and physical evidence but price, employee and process are not significantly associated with green brand image. The following set of hypotheses that address the effects of psychographic variables on green purchase intention reveal that hotel customers’ green purchase intention is affected by environmental concern, global environmental connectedness, perceived personal relevance and altruism. However, perceived consumer effectiveness is not significantly associated with green purchase intention. Next, the result shows that perceived role of government is a significant predictor of green purchase intention and green consumption behaviour is significantly affected by green purchase intention. As for the moderating effects, all psychographic variables (i.e., environmental concern, global environmental connectedness, perceived consumer effectiveness, perceived personal relevance and altruism) do not moderate the relationship between green purchase intention and green consumption behaviour. On the other hand, demographic variables (i.e., gender, age, educational level and income) seem to have significant moderating effects on the relationship between green purchase intention and green consumption behaviour. Correspondingly, the green purchase intention and green consumption behaviour relationship seems to be stronger among female, high-age, high-education and high-income customers. Finally, this study confirms that the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) which is an extension model of the theory of reasoned action (TRA) can provide a sound theoretical platform for explaining the antecedents and outcomes of the adoption of an eco-friendly marketing strategy in the hotel sector. Similarly, this study affirms that the model of buyer behaviour is very useful in providing a direction to determine the right choice of moderators of the intention-behaviour relationship. To conclude, this study provides insights for planning effective policy and firm-level marketing strategies to promote pro-environmental behaviour among hotel customers.