Beyond green practices: How the Dutch hotel sector contributes to a more sustainable world

Abstract

The tourism sector is growing fast. This brings some downsides, among which is the negative impact on the environment. Therefore, the demand for sustainable goods and services has increased in the past few years. This increasing demand led to a sustainability trend among hotels. By means of implementing green practices, hotels can reduce their negative environmental impact. At the same time, there is a gap between attitude and behaviour among the hotel guests. Therefore, involving guests in sustainability measures is a complex task for hotels. This research focuses on the hotel sector in Amsterdam, a destination in which a situation of ‘overtourism’ occurs. Hotels are examined to find out what they do about sustainability, how they involve their guests, and how choice architecture techniques are used. Based on the empirical research, this thesis distinguishes two notions about when sustainability is successfully implemented. The first one is that sustainability is successful when guests are convinced to voluntarily cooperate in green practices, whereas the other one is that sustainability is successful when guests do not notice anything of the green practices. Furthermore, this research points to the roles of hotel guests, governmental instances, eco-labels and the hotels in accomplishing sustainability in hotels.