The influence of green innovation towards adoption of green practice behaviours in city centre based hotels: Gauteng province perspective

Abstract

Purpose – This study investigates the antecedents that lead to green practice behaviours in city centre based hotels. This study aims to add value in the academic space and in the tourism industry, especially the green innovative tourist destinations. Background – As a discipline, marketing always runs parallel to socio-economic development, and it reflects existing socio-economic relations. Everyone is now aware of the changes that are happening in the global atmosphere; we see it in the unpredictable weather patterns, degradation of rainforests, and an increase in genetically modified foods, etc. Tourism is portrayed as another subject of research and movement in colleges and universities, however in spite of its relative youth, it has created significant measures of knowledge. In the knowledge that already exists, this research paper disseminates the concept of green practice within city centre based hotels, and what leads to these hotels practising environmentally friendly practices. Design/methodology/approach - Data was collected from 201 respondents using anonymously completed questionnaires. Research scales were adopted from previous research papers. With regards to the individual questions, the researcher had to modify them in order for them to fit the current study and purpose. “Green brand image” ,“Environmental sustainability” “Green innovation” , “Green Practices” were all measured using five scale items while “Green growth strategy” was measured using four scale items. All the measurement items were measured on a five point Likert-type scales that was anchored by 1 strongly disagree to 5 strongly agree to express the degree of agreement. All the data collected was then analysed using SPSS 25 and AMOS 25. Findings – The researcher can conclude that there is a positive influence when it comes to city centre based hotels adopting green practices, this is backed up by the result tested in chapter five, especially this result between green innovation and green practices; the path coefficient came out as 0.358, which implies that there is a strong relationship between green innovation and green practice, whilst the p-value of 0.001 denotes a p < 0.05 confidence level and this signifies that the hypothesis is supported and significant. From the stated hypotheses, only two hypotheses had insignificant relationships - this is hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 6, both with P values greater than 0.05. Finally, there was one hypothesis that was not tested at all which is hypothesis 3 - the relationship between green price and green innovation; this was due to the fact that the variables did not meet the testing requirements that AMOS 25 requires. Practical Implications – The findings of this empirical study are expected to provide fruitful implications to both practitioners and academicians. On the academic side, the study has identified important relationships between green branding, green prices, green growth strategy, environmental sustainability, green innovation, and green practice. It should be noted that the relationship between green branding and green practices and green growth strategy and green innovation were insignificant. The study adds to the already existing literature within the green tourism area, specifically in the hospitality industry from a South African context. The study makes it clear for executives, managers, as well as consumers, the importance of green practices in hotels. The relationship between the variables shows that indeed green tourism is the future and not only does it give a business a competitive edge, it does so while looking after the environment. And the image goes a long way within the community, building an everlasting brand as a responsible establishment. Despite the usefulness of this study, the research has its limitations, most significantly the sample size was small and limited to the Gauteng province, South Africa, this means future research can be conducted using the same variables on a bigger sample size as well as using different relationships between the variables