The Relationship Between Revenue and Environmental Responsibility: A Causal Study Using Reputation in the Hotel Industry

The tourism sector and, in particular, the hotel industry are aware of the environmental problems generated by their activities. This industry now must take into account the progressively deeper sensitisation of stakeholders to the environment and the exigencies that result from implementing responsible strategies when managing hotel activities’ settings. Hotels thus need to remain alert to their stakeholders’ demands in order to offer products and services compatible with these requirements. The long-term benefit of this awareness is more competitive and profitable companies. This study focused on determining to what extent hotels’ consciousness of environmental responsibility generates a positive impact on profitability, as represented by RevPAR, a performance metric specific to the hotel industry. The research also included examining to what extent hotels’ reputation has a mediating effect in this relationship. The proposed model was tested with a sample of 230 hotels located in Spain, using the partial least squares method of assessing structural equation models. The results reveal that environmental sustainability has a significant positive impact on RevPAR and that reputation acts a mediating factor in this context. Thus, hotel companies need to bear in mind that corporate social responsibility policies regarding the environment are not an undesirable cost but rather an investment that ensures long-term, sustainable financial returns.