Eco-Label Certification, Hotel Performance, and Customer Satisfaction: Analysis of a Case Study and Future Developments

The hospitality industry is a significant contributor to environment degradation and over the lastyears has started to implement voluntary instruments to manage environmental sustainability ofits operations. The main goal of this research is to examine guest perception of these practices withrespect to other hotel service quality attributes. The first objective is to identify the existence of aspecific environmental dimension among hotel service quality dimensions. Taking as baseline forthe analysis the three-factor theory of customer satisfaction, the second objective of the study is toevaluate if green attributes are considered by guest as basic, performance, or excitement attributes.As these attributes are not generally recognized as essential in the provision of hotel service, ourhypothesis is that they may be perceived by guest as excitement factors. If the hypothesis isconfirmed, when these attributes are delivered properly, they surprise and generate delight.Through a survey, targeted to hotel customers, the paper investigates how they evaluate greenattributes implemented by hotels awarded with an Eco-label. Results show that customers identifyenvironmental practices as specific dimension of eco-label hotel. Additionally, the analysis showsthat most of environmental practices implemented by hotel are identified by customers asexcitement factors.