Abstract

Introduction

Theoretical background and literature

Environmental concerns in travel, tourism and hospitality

Methodology

Variables

Model specification

Key findings

Discussion and conclusion

Conclusion and limitations

Acknowledgements

References

Abstract

     By deploying big data analytical techniques to retrieve and analyze a large volume of more than 2.7 million reviews, this work sheds light on how environmental concerns expressed by tourists on digital platforms, in the guise of online reviews, influence their satisfaction with tourism and hospitality services. More specifically, we conduct a multi-platform study of Tripadvisor.com and Booking.com online reviews (ORs) pertaining to hotel services across eight leading tourism destination cities in America and Europe over the period 2017–۲۰۱۸٫ By adopting multivariate regression analyses, we show that OR ratings are positively influenced by both the presence and depth of environmental discourse on these platforms. Theoretical and managerial contributions, and implications for digital platforms, big data analytics (BDA), electronic word-of-mouth (eWOM) and environmental research within the tourism and hospitality domain are examined, with a view to capturing, empirically, the effect of environmental discourse presence and depth on customer satisfaction proxied through online ratings.

Introduction

     Human consumption activities have been found to generate natural resources depletion and jeopardize the very existence of the planet (United Nations, 2013). Tourism is no exception. As a subset of human activities, tourism-related activities have been found to consume considerable natural resources. In 2010, it was estimated that tourism-related activities consumed (on average) 3,575MJ of energy per trip, 6,575 liters of water per tourist, 42 m2 of land per bed, 1,800 g of food per tourist/day, and generate 250 kg CO2 of emission per trip (Gössling & Peeters, 2015). The overall situation is getting worst over time, with growth factors over the period 2010–۲۰۵۰ estimated to be 2.64 for energy and CO2 emissions, 1.92 for fresh water, 2.89 for land use and 2.08 for food use. Tourism activities – the tourism and hospitality infrastructure, and transit activities – have a detrimental impact on the environment (for example, in the form of CO2 emission). An excess of tourism flow, known as over-tourism, is identified as one of the major issues associated with tourism activities and has been increasingly researched (Oklevik et al., 2019).

Discussion and conclusion

     Building on more than 2.7 million ORs collected from Booking.com and Tripadvisor.com (Li et al., 2018; Mariani et al., 2018), and examined with sophisticated big data analytical techniques, this work has described consumers’ behaviors and how consumers perceive and deal with sustainability issues, and if consumers’ environmental discourse affects their OR ratings. By adopting multivariate regression analyses, we have shown that OR ratings are positively influenced by both environmental discourse presence and depth on both the platforms analyzed. Overall, our findings shed light on the presence and impact on customer satisfaction of consumers’ environmental concerns embedded in tourists’ UGC, across several leading tourism destinations based in two different continents.