Pro-Environmental Behavior of hotel guests: application of the Theory of Planned Behavior and social norms to towel reuse

Abstract

This paper presents a scenario-based experimental study, carried out to examine pro-environmental behavior of hotel guests. The aim of the research was to test the Ajzen’s Theory of Planned Behavior (TBP) model, the influence from social norms interventions on the towel reuse behavior, and the role of habit in such. The TPB model showed good fit to the data and better predictive power than the Theory of Reasoned Action model, while refined TBP model had superior fit over the named ones. The results of a structural equation modelling revealed that attitude, subjective norm and perceived behavioral control positively affected intention of hotel guests to reuse the towel. Social norms interventions came out with no significant difference among the four groups with injunctive, descriptive, combined and no-norm messages. Further investigation indicated that past behavior had a great predictive power of behavioral intention, explaining 19 % of variance. This effect was partially mediated by TPB constructs as attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control. Inclusion of past behavior into TPB model didn’t significantly improve predictive power of such. The results form a basis upon which towel-reuse behavior appears to be both decisionmaking process and a habitual action to certain extent, it is discussed in relation to possible implications, theory and practice, and further research.