Tourists’ water conservation behavior in hotels: the role of gender

Abstract

Hotels and destination managers are increasingly expressing concern about the impacts of climate change and sustainable water use, especially in crowded and water-scarce destinations. The aim of this study is to examine gender differences in hotel guests' reported water conservation behavior (WCB) when on vacation. The study examines several factors that can potentially affect these gender differences, namely attitudes toward water conservation, normative and hedonic motives, destination problem awareness, and destination attachment. Data from a sample of 680 hotel guests reveal significant gender differences, with specific factors affecting the WCB of guests of each gender. Attitudes exert a positive influence on guests' WCB. This influence is greater for women than for men. Normative motives also positively influence attitudes, although this effect is greater for men than for women. Conversely, hedonic motives negatively influence water conservation attitudes, and this effect is greater for women than for men. Lastly, destination problem awareness positively influences normative motives, while destination attachment negatively influences hedonic motives. No gender effect is found for these relationships. The implications for research and practice in sustainable tourism and pro-environmental behavior are presented.

How Residents' Attitudes to Tourists and Tourism Affect Their Pro-tourism Behaviours: The Moderating Role of Chinese Traditionality

“…Consequently, the effects of HTI on residents' support for tourism is under-researched (Fan et al, 2017b;Eusébio et al, 2018). In addition, a large body of research suggests that many factors, such as personality traits (Kim et al, 2021), gender (Casado-Díaz et al, 2020) and green marketing (Liao et al, 2020), motivation (Kim et al, 2017) moderate the links between attitudes and intention. However, research examining the cultural boundaries of the utility of attitudes on intention is scarce.…”

The moderation of gender in the effects of Chinese traditionality and patriotism on Chinese domestic travel intention

“…In the study of Shin et al (2020), gender difference was not found between consumers' AT and their purchasing intention or consumers' SNs and their purchasing intention. However, some different findings have been found in some previous studies (Casado-Dı ´az et al, 2020;Moon, 2021). Moon (2021) found that gender significantly moderated the relationship between consumers' SNs and their intention to visit a green restaurant.…”

“…Moon (2021) found that gender significantly moderated the relationship between consumers’ SNs and their intention to visit a green restaurant. Casado-Díaz et al (2020) identified that the association between guests’ attitudes towards in-room water-conservation and reported behaviour was greater for women than that for men. The different findings might be explained by the different attributes of behaviour itself.…”

“…Han et al (2018) argued that “women were particularly active in such pro-environmental behaviours” (p. 7). In the studies of Moon (2021) and Casado-Díaz et al (2020), both types of behaviour are environmentally friendly and sustainable behaviour (dining in green restaurant and water-conservation in hotel), which results in the gender difference. However, the type of behaviour investigated in this study is domestic travel intention.…”

“…Moon (2021) have attested that gender moderated the impact of customers’ SNs on their intention regarding green restaurant patronage. In an investigation of hotel guests, Casado-Díaz et al (2020) found that the influence of their AT toward water conservation on the behaviour for females was stronger than that for males.…”