Green Marketing Practices And Customer Satisfaction in Selected Hotels in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Green marketing has become a concern for customers patronising services from various industries. They are becoming more sensitive to issues concerning the environment. Customers not only actively seek goods and services that satisfy their needs but are also environmentally friendly. This concern for green marketing practices is becoming even more critical in the hotel industry as the sector has been described as the silent destroyer of the environment. Unfortunately, research on green marketing in the hotel industry is still at its development stage, and this necessitates an expansion of the literature and theory. Though several studies have been conducted on green marketing issues in general and the hotel industry in particular, not much attention has been paid to its impact on the satisfaction of hotel guests, even though customer satisfaction is critical to the success of a hotel. This study, therefore, examined the green marketing practices of selected hotels in Ghana and determined its impact on guest(s) satisfaction. A structured questionnaire was administered to hotel guest(s). Data were analysed using structural equation modelling (SEM). The study revealed four of the green marketing practices (food and beverage quality, energy conservation, air quality and noise pollution) have a statistically significant impact on guest(s) satisfaction. The following demographic factors (gender, age, nationality and level of education) also significantly impacted the relationship between green marketing and customer satisfaction. It is recommended that management of hotels improve their green marketing practices with respect to food quality, energy conservation, air quality and noise pollution as the dimensions significantly impacted guest’s satisfaction in this study. Management should also pay particular attention to age, gender, level of education and nationality as they also affect how guest(s) perceive their relevance on green marketing practice. It would be good for future researchers to broaden the scope of the study to cover hotels at the lower end of the market to establish whether the factors would hold true for that segment of the sector. Future studies could also cover other industries so that the relevance of these green marketing practices to customer satisfaction in other industries could be determined.