A psychographic framework for determining South African consumers’ green hotel decision formation: Augmenting the Theory of Planned Behaviour

Abstract

Although South African consumers are showing increased green purchasing intentions, the factors that will lead to an intended behaviour of selecting green hotels have yet to be researched. Accordingly, this research explores the predictive ability of the Theory of Planned Behaviour (TPB) and then further modifies and develops extended model structures surrounding the TPB, to identify and confirm an independent theoretical model that will be able to better understand South African consumers’ intended behaviour towards selecting green hotels. To answer the aim and objectives set, the research positioned itself within a non-experimental quantitative paradigm. An online questionnaire was distributed to South African consumers that stayed at a hotel at least once within a 12-month period. A total of 402 completed responses were used for statistical analysis.

Descriptive statistical analysis derived and assessed the demographic profile of the respondents and determined the respondents’ characteristics as South Africans who intend to stay at or visit hotels. Structural equation modelling revealed that the original TPB is a strong predictor of behavioural intention, indicating its applicability to the domain of South African consumers’ behavioural intention of selecting green hotels. Furthermore, it was found this can statistically be best explained by expanding the original TPB model to include emotive and non-cognitive predictor variables, namely anticipated regret and perceived moral obligation, as direct constructs to behavioural intention as well as by including environmental knowledge as a direct predictor variable to attitude. In addition, it found that the relationship between behavioural intention and perceived behavioural control was the most significant in predicting South African consumers’ intended behaviour of selecting green hotels