Green Practices in Contemporary Hotels in Greece.

The aim of this paper is to examine the perceptions of travelers regarding the environmental sustainability of a hotel. Hospitality literature review depicts that few studies have investigated Green practices that result in hotels sustainability, from the traveler's point of view. In a competitive market, managers realize that implementing green strategies to reduce energy, water consumption and waste disposal, is important to withstand economic crisis. On the other hand, it is interesting to investigate whether this green policy has an effect on the increase of the intention of guests, who share environmental concerns, to visit such a hotel. The Authors perform a field study using a sample of tourists visited Halkidiki, in Greece, and gather data regarding their knowledge and attitude toward the adoption of environmentally friendly policies and at the same time to investigate if their intention to visit hotels that implement such policies is also affected positively. The results are quite positive and pinpoint that ethical and green policies may result in reducing costs on the one hand and attract an existing dynamic market nest on the other, so that finally green policy can be a strategic decision of the hotels' management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]