Perception of environmental strategies in hotels and the influence towards future behavior intention: Locals’ perspective in Malaysia - Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research - page 344

2 LITERATURE REVIEW waste and recycling management strategies; plac-

ing recycling bins in all front and back-of-house
areas; purchasing used or recycled-content prod-
ucts; adopting a donation program for leftover
guest amenities, old furniture and appliances; and
composting organic kitchen waste (Park, 2009).
Other strategies include using refillable amenity
dispensers; providing reusable items such as cloth
napkins, glass cups, ceramic dished with food and
beverage service; grinding guest soaps to use as
laundry detergent for hotel uniforms; purchasing
food items and cleaning chemicals in bulk con-
tainers; and recovering used cooking oil and food
waste are also practiced in hotels.
Besides the three major areas of environmental
management mentioned earlier, there are several
other practices designed to encourage eco-friendly
hotels. Kasimu et al. (2012) suggested utilizing eco-
friendly cleaners and detergent, purchasing locally
produced supplies, buying from environmentally
responsible suppliers, establishing a formal channel
to cooperate NGOs, establishing guests education
programs, supporting local communities to enhance
local environment, and incorporating environmen-
tal reporting in corporate control systems.

Environmental management in hotel is categorized
into the following segments; energy and water
conservation, waste reduction, and recycling man-
agement (Molina-Azorín, Claver-Cortés, Pereira-
Moliner & Tarí, 2009). Meanwhile, the span of
environmental management is built around both
front and back-of-house operations, organizational
system and culture as well as external business
relationship (Park, 2009). Environmental efforts
in hotels must be planned and exercised with care;
hence hoteliers need to strike a balance between
creating unobtrusive environmental strategies to
all guests while keeping it visible to satisfy environ-
mentally-conscious clientele. Thus, understanding
both guests' perception toward existing environ-
mental practices as well as its influence towards
their future behavior intention are considered to be
part of the indicators that could determine one's
business success.

2.1 Environmental strategies in hotel
The hotel industry in general consumes consider-
able amount of electricity and fossil fuel energy
in various operational areas (Park, 2009). The
usage of energy efficient bulbs can save about 25
percent of energy costs, depending on the scale of
the hotel. In addition other countries also imple-
ment numerous energy management initiatives
including application of renewable energy pro-
gram such as the use of wind, solar, and run-of
river power; adopting automated energy control
system through key-card; replacing incandescent
bulbs with fluorescent lighting; installing energy-
efficient equipment in major operational areas
such as laundry; using digital thermostats to con-
trol guestroom energy consumption; and installing
occupancy sensor to automatically turn off lights
when guests leave their room (Kasimu, Zaiton &
Hassan, 2012).
An average hotel consumes about 209 gallons
of water per occupied room daily (Brodsky, 2005).
The high cost consideration has driven many
hotels to implement water conservation program.
For example, Marriott International introduced
'linen reuse program' by encouraging guests to
reuse linens and towels during their stay in the
hotel (Marriott International, 2007) and this pro-
gram has been implemented by other hotel brands
worldwide (Kasimu, et al., 2012).
Waste reduction and recycling are part of envi-
ronmental initiatives in hotel. The main purpose of
waste management is to reduce quantity and tox-
icity of waste produced that mostly derived from
papers and food waste (Wastecare Corporation,
2013). The following are other commonly applied

2.2 Future behavior intention
A future behavioral intention is a person's subjec-
tive possibility to perform possible behavior in the
future and key to profitability to the most of the
service provider (Rise, Sheeran & Hukkelberg,
2010). Customers tend to demonstrate positive
behavior intention when they perceive high levels of
value from consumption experiences (Ha & Jang,
2010). Willingness to recommend to others and
stronger intentions to revisit a place are another
result from positive perceived service quality (Chen
& Peng, 2012). Other studies within the spectrum
of hospitality and tourism for example, Godes
(2013) reported similar outcome. Another manifes-
tation of behavioral intention can be seen through
word of mouth or WOM (Buttle, 1998). WOM is
essential in hospitality marketing and considered
the most consistent and powerful tool deriving
through personal expression (Ferguson, Paulin
& Bergeron, 2010), while the impact is long-term
(Keller, 2007). Valls Andrade and Arribas (2011)
demystified that demand becomes greater when a
product or service is rare; consequently user is will-
ing to spend more to obtain it and becoming less
sensitive to the price.

3 METHODOLOGY

In accessing respondents' perception and future
behavioral intention toward environmental