Green Hospitality: Measuring Service Quality for Customer Retention

This research proposal investigates how environmentally conscious hospitality service providers retain valued customers through quality measurement, exploring new dimensions for green accommodation, specifically within the Merlyn Spike hotel in Sydney. Employing an interpretivist research philosophy and exploratory research design, the study aims to understand the impact of green initiatives on customer behavior. Data will be collected through qualitative thematic analysis of interviews with respondents from Australia and Pakistan, focusing on themes such as environmental awareness, customer purchase decisions, and gender disparities in green purchasing. The research seeks to establish a correlation between green services and customer retention, ultimately providing recommendations for hoteliers to enhance customer engagement and reduce disparities in green purchasing.

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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Methodology....................................................................................................................................2
Key themes......................................................................................................................................4
Awareness of environmental footprints in hotels........................................................................4
Developing the customer awareness............................................................................................5
Gender disparity in green purchasing..........................................................................................6
Recommendations............................................................................................................................6
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7

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Topic: Environmentally green hospitality service providers retain valued customers through
quality measurement and new dimensions for green accommodation.
Introduction
The advent of globalisation intensifies the competition among the business organisation
that compels them to find out new strategies to establish business strategically. One of the major
purposes is to maximise the customers for ensuring the sustainability of the business practice. As
a result of that unique and effective business strategies are required for the corporate business
organisation in order to encapsulate the market extensively. Henceforth, the green initiatives has
become a better practice for the hospitality industries for attracting the customers through
benevolent practices. Apart from that, the green service offering is also resembled with creating a
brand image and reducing expenses to a great extent that are also serving the need of the
company to maximise its profitability. It is associated with the notion of sustainability and
embracing not only the business but also the environment as well. Therefore, both the economic
and the environmental considerations play significant role for influencing the business
organisations to imbibe the practice of green initiatives effectively. Based on this understanding
this research is going to discuss the impact of corporate green initiatives on the valued customers
and investigate new dimensions for green accommodations within the hospitality services in
Merlyn Spike hotel in Sydney..
Methodology
This research is going to find out the behavioural changes of the customers by getting
green services. In this regard, the research requires a thorough investigation on the change in

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valued customers’ behaviour while they receive any green service. Therefore, the research
philosophy will be set on the theory of interpretivism. Based on the interperetivist theory of
research philosophy the researcher will interpret the outcome of the study on the basis of a
rational justification. Moreover, the theory of interpretivism will focus on the specific objectives
and meaning of the research theme. Based on this principle it will be helpful for the researcher to
analyse and evaluate the degree of impact that green services incurs in order to influence the
valued customers. Moreover, there is also scope to research on the new dimensions of green
service initiatives and the philosophy of interpretivism also highlights on that.
Besides this, this research requires an exploratory research design so that there will be no
conclusive result that the research can get but will facilitate by an in-depth analysis of the entire
practice. In order to investigate into the new dimensions of green accommodation, the research
intends to focus on the exploratory research design and drives to reveal new insights into the
research spectrum. It is the intention of the researcher to procure better approach towards the
theme of the research to extract data from the findings and analysis and based on the findings
establishing a logical framework for further research. In this research, the behaviour of the
customers is the primary concern for the researcher. Green service is an impetus to influence the
behaviour of the customers. Therefore, the investigation thoroughly based on the exploratory
research design will procure deep analysis on the research topic.
The data sampling and analysis method of this research will focus on the descriptive style
based on the qualitative thematic analysis on the respondents. The purpose of choosing the
qualitative thematic style is to pose a great deal of focus on the samples and figures out the
change in their attitude after having a green service. Customer retention is considered to be a
major aspect for this research and the research is willing to establish a positive correlation

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between the customers and the hospitality service providers. In this context, an interview
questionnaire will also be in order to get the actual information regarding customer behaviour. A
target sampling is also needed to conduct proper interview. Therefore, a total 4 respondents will
be taken in the form of 2 from Australia and 2 from Pakistan. Both structured and semi
structured open ended questionnaire will be designed on the basis of qualitative thematic
analysis.
Key themes
The major themes of this research are based on three distinctive forms of interviewing the
respondents. The first theme is associated with the environmental concerns where the key focus
is fixed on the prospect of the hotels to implement an environmental footprint as a core service
offering. Moreover, the consumer awareness towards the eco-friendly initiative will also be
discussed on the first theme. Besides this, the second aspect is related that the purchase decisions
of the customers and how far they are influenced towards buying green services. It is important
for the hotel companies to get a clear perception about the customers’ behaviour towards green
initiatives. The customers will respond on their previous experience and enlighten the
importance of green services. Furthermore, the third issue is related to the gender differences in
intention to purchase environment friendly accommodation. Not all the customers are aware of
the green services and it may be for their first time they have experienced such service facilities.
Therefore, it will provide a clear analysis of their experience and remarks to the service
initiatives.

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Awareness of environmental footprints in hotels
According to the research of Kjaer et al. (2015) it can be stated that there are huge
implication of the environmental footprint nowadays for the business initiatives where the
organisations are motivating to implement the environmental footprints in their business
activities as an outcome of the sustainable measures. There are two main reasons that drive the
organisations to choose eco-friendly measures. From the research of Pereira et al. (2016) it can
be stated that the companies are focusing on the research in order to reduce their expenditure in a
rapid manner. Reducing the energy consumptions and wastage lead to the reduction of expenses
and the outcome is highly profitable for the business organisations. Moreover, Laurent and
Owsianiak (2o17) articulated that the customer maximisation is an important aspect for the
business organisation and due to globalisation high competition in the local market withheld the
practice of encapsulating the market effectively for the local business actors. Therefore, they are
looking for an unique measure in order to build up a strong market orientation blended in the
practice of sustainability. The sustainable business practice helps the local business companies to
create and develop a better image that attracts the customers to visit due to the appearance and
acceptability of the organisation. in addition to this, customer loyalty and retention is also an
important aspect on which the business organisations are focused on. Therefore, it is always
seems advantageous and easy to implement for the local business players. Apart from that
environmental degradation is also a major reason that encourages the business organisation to
take responsibilities in order to bring a better world for the future generations. From that point of
view, it can be opined that the environmental factors creates huge exposure for the business
companies to transform their business activities out of an ethical perception.

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Developing the customer awareness
The social aspect of the business paves the way for the corporate companies to take
adequate responsibilities in order to bring development in the customer awareness. From the
investigation of Laurent and Owsianiak (2017) it can be stated that there are more than one third
of the global population having less knowledge regarding the role of the environmental
footprints in business organisation. In fact, it is a disadvantage for the corporate too because
most of them are already inculcated the process of econ-friendly business practices. Therefore,
having no response to the customers will result in huge loss that the companies are not wanting.
Therefore, it is important to make an effort to increase the awareness among the customers to
understand the importance of environmental footprints.
Gender disparity in green purchasing
The research of Lehmann, Bach and Finkbeiner (2015) argued that there is a gender
disparity among the customers related to the purchase of green products. in the Asian market the
female customers are more aware of the importance of using green products than the males. For
example, in Korea, environmental degradation and pollution are increasing in a rapid pace. The
local women are started protest against the use of environment damaging products and
organisational practices. However, men are not aware of such kind of issues. Therefore, a
discrepancy within the customers created huge problem for the hospitality service industries to
initiate better measures.
Recommendations
I. It is important for the hoteliers to spread the significance of environmental footprints so
that a benevolent image of that hotel can be developed. For this, an awareness campaign

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can be implemented that will portray the purpose and the process of the hotel to bring
environmental footprints into fold.
II. Attracting the customers is also essential for the organisations to ensure their
profitability. The customer awareness efforts can be developed with the help of customer
engagement and accustomed them with the benevolent and good practice of the green
initiatives.
III. Moreover, putting an effort to reduce the disparity in green purchasing is also a
concerned aspect on which the hotel should take adequate measure. In this regard,
influencing the customers to buy the green services through special offers and
concessions will be an effective measure that the hotel must take into consideration in
order to retain valued customers and open up more exposure for green accommodations.
Conclusion
The above discussion is an outline of the proposed research and it is necessary for the
researcher to understand and evaluate the topic clearly. Insight into the green initiative is a
dynamic aspect that the hotel is focused on. Therefore, to the point analysis and execution of the
research method is highly required. As a result of that this research methodology rightly points
out effective design of research that will achieve the objectives of the research effectively. The
use of qualitative analysis on the basis of interview questionnaire is seems to be effective enough
to understand the fathom of the topic and the required actions that the research must take
properly. In fact, the sample size is very small but objective enough to access the impact of green
services on the valued customers. Subsequently the new opportunities for green accommodation
will also be evaluated in the context of profitability of the hotels by implementing green

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initiatives. Therefore, this research proposal is to the point and relevant enough with the theme of
the research.

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Reference
Kjaer, L., Høst-Madsen, N., Schmidt, J. and McAloone, T., 2015. Application of environmental
input-output analysis for corporate and product environmental footprints—Learnings from three
cases. Sustainability, 7(9), pp.11438-11461.
Laurent, A. and Owsianiak, M., 2017. Potentials and limitations of footprints for gauging
environmental sustainability. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability, 25, pp.20-27.
Lehmann, A., Bach, V. and Finkbeiner, M., 2015. Product environmental footprint in policy and
market decisions: applicability and impact assessment. Integrated environmental assessment and
management, 11(3), pp.417-424.
Pereira, Á., Carballo-Penela, A., González-López, M. and Vence, X., 2016. A case study of
servicizing in the farming-livestock sector: organisational change and potential environmental
improvement. Journal of Cleaner production, 124, pp.84-93.