Which Sustainability Communication Strategy is better for Hotels: Message Design or Message Content?

By Dr. Shaniel Bernard

In the aftermath of a failed performance management, businesses often resolve that “one size does not fit all.” Despite this buzz phrase being used as a stopgap measure to express the idea that one strategy cannot appeal to the diverse needs of a business’s customer base, previous empirical studies on sustainability marketing disregard this way of thinking when they focus on single cues to influence customer sustainable behavior.

Building on advertising research that acknowledges the value of unifying message content and design features to stimulate engagement, two studies were conducted with a sample of onsite and online hotel guests to determine the combined effect of language design elements that identify connectives and prepositional phrases with message content as essential grounding components of persuasion. Put differently, we presented guests with a generic environmental message inviting them to save the planet by participating in the hotel’s environmental towel or linen program. The messages differ only by the rhetorical devices that make distinctions (e.g., but not, given that, specifically) or exaggerate claims (e.g., and, various, all) in the sustainability message. We tested if differences in these types of sustainability communication could influence booking intention through intervening variables such as perceived environmental performance, perceived greenwashing, and environmental concern.

The study found that sustainability messages with rhetorical devices that make distinctions are more effective in driving booking intention. This strategy also positively influences guests’ perception of the hotel’s environmental performance and reduces perceptions of greenwashing. We also found that customers with high levels of environmental concern were more likely to visit and pay more for a hotel’s green initiatives, only if they perceive that hotels are performing well on their environmental claims, but this effect disappears if they perceive the hotel is greenwashing.

While this study offers new insights into the combined effect of language design elements with message content as essential grounding components of persuasion in hotels’ sustainability communication, there are clear gaps and opportunities for sustainability marketing research to test combinations of visual and message content with rhetorical devices to improve stakeholders’ uptake of sustainability products and services.

Article Details
Sustainability Communication in Hotels: The Role of Cognitive Linguistics
Shaniel Bernard, Imran Rahman and Alecia Douglas
First published online March 6, 2023
DOI: 10.1177/10963480231158757
Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research

About the Author