Does sustainable consumption behaviour impacts luxury services purchase intention?

Abstract

The agenda of researchers and professionals in the luxury industry is constantly changing, and not consensual in the literature. Luxury services have also followed this phenomenon. Nevertheless, studies on sustainability in this industry are still quite limited. In the context of the hospitality industry, sustainability has been predominantly active over the past decades. Many sustainability related practices are considered by hotel customers (Sourvinou & Filimonau, 2018) and they have found that hotels are increasingly taking actions related to water conservation, energy efficiency, and waste reduction (Rhou & Singal, 2020; Richins & Scarinci, 2009; Rico et al., 2019). Also, it was explored that customer take into account sustainable activities in hotels (Moyeen et al., 2019). Recently, pro-environmental behaviour in the hospitality industry showed concern on the decision-making in the choice of a sustainable hotel instead of a less sustainable one (Kim et al., 2020). In addition, customers' characteristics, such as propensity to act in a pro-environmental way, shows a high positive impact in their preference in selecting sustainable hotels (Nilashi et al., 2019; Vinzenz, 2019). Consumers who are used to travel reflect a high intention to stay in an environmentally friendly hotel and pay more for environmentally friendly products and services (Han & Yoon, 2015). It also seems that customers' income levels aim to affect their preferences when choosing sustainable hotels (Chen & Peng, 2012). Even some features, such as its cultural context (Cheer & Lew, 2017), the attitudes, and unique treatment of the employees (Sloan et al., 2009) and their social media strategies (Do Paço, et al., 2012) are reflected in the impact of the effectiveness of sustainability strategies. The goal of this study is to understand the role of sustainability in a luxury service in purchasing decision-making. Specifically, this study aims to understand whether awareness and environmental practices concerns interfere in the intention and decision to purchase luxury services when motivated by determinants such as hedonism, perceived value, social image, high quality, status gratification and self-expression.