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Influence of perceived environmental knowledge and environmental concern

on customers' green hotel visit intention: mediating role of green trust

Article  in  Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Administration · March 2022

DOI: 10.1108/APJBA-08-2021-0421

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Nafia Sultana Sanjida Amin

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Influence of perceived Customers’

green hotel
environmental knowledge and visit intention

environmental concern on
customers’ green hotel visit
intention: mediating role of Received 27 August 2021
Revised 22 December 2021

green trust Accepted 8 January 2022

Nafia Sultana
Faculty of Business Studies, Bangladesh University of Professionals,
Dhaka, Bangladesh and
School of Business and Economics, Universiti Putra Malaysia,
Serdang, Malaysia, and
Sanjida Amin and Azharul Islam
Bangladesh University of Professionals, Dhaka, Bangladesh

Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this study is twofold. First, it aims to examine the influence of customers’ green
considerations in the form of perceived green knowledge and environmental concern on their intention to stay
at green hotels; and secondly, to explain the mediating role of green trust among the considered variables.
Design/methodology/approach – The study investigates green hotel visit perceptions of 213 customers of
hotel industry of Dhaka, Bangladesh using Partial Least Square method. Data was collected using a standard
structured questionnaire.
Findings – The findings display a significant positive influence of perceived green knowledge and green trust
on customers’ green hotel visit intention. Moreover, green trust mediates the relationship of green visit
intentions with customers’ green knowledge and environmental concern.
Practical implications – The study demonstrates that environmental knowledge and green trust make
customers choose green hotels. The findings of the current study may assist the hotel business administrators
to understand the underlying factors for choosing green hotels and adopting green practices in their business
operations accordingly.
Originality/value – To the best knowledge of the researchers, the study is first to measure the mediating
impact of green trust on the influential factors of customers’ green hotel visit intention in Bangladesh. The
result reveals how considered variables interact with each other to influence green hotel choice decisions.
Keywords Green visit intention, Green hotels, Tourism and hotel, Green knowledge, Environmental concern,
Green trust, Environment
Paper type Research paper

1. Introduction
Alarming environmental issues and growing ecological concerns have brought gradual
changes in the lifestyle of people all around the world, thus leading to changes in consumer
purchasing behavior. People have started to show positive attitudes to accept the goods and
services of the organizations that have made determinations to adopt green practices in their
operations (Khosla et al., 2005). Earlier studies (Lee, 2009; Rahbar and Wahid, 2011) showed
that purchasers are mindful and ready to spend more money to “go green”. Again, the result Asia-Pacific Journal of Business
Administration
of a survey piloted by Mckinsey (2007), on 7,751 people approximately in Brazil, Canada, © Emerald Publishing Limited
1757-4323
China, France, Germany, India, the UK, and USA shows that about 87% of buyers are DOI 10.1108/APJBA-08-2021-0421
APJBA alarmed about the effect of the products they buy on society and environment (Adrita, 2020).
According to the researchers, individuals and communities all over the world are becoming
more sensitive regarding the context of environmental sustainability, ecological concurs, and
green behavior (Wang, 2020). Hence, environmentally sustainable products and services are
becoming a heightened trend which may render it to be the one of the most appealing and
prioritized business strategies by most of the business organizations (Vazifehdoust
et al., 2013).
The hospitality and tourism industry obviously play a significant role in promoting
sustainability and green consumption as it appears to affect the environment negatively
through its multiple functions (Al-Aomar and Hussain, 2017; Wang, 2020). Tourists travel
millions of miles away to grasp the beauty of colorful, fresh and pollution-free hygiene
environment and Verma et al. (2019) believed people are concerned about the impact of their
purchase behavior on the environment. According to previous scholars, the hotel industry
may show a negative impact on environmental aspects up to 75% due to its excessive usage
of natural resources like water and other non-durable goods (Bohdanowicz, 2006). Hotels can
contaminate the air, water and immediate environment by producing filth, dust, and rubbish
at the time of building constructions; hotels can also pollute the environment during daily
operations through improper sewerage management, ill waste disposal services, and misuse
of resources like water, gas, electricity (Nezakati et al., 2015).
For many countries including Bangladesh, tourism is treated as one main source of
earnings and employment for the economy. As a result, achieving tourist satisfaction is the
prime target of the hotels to run and sustain in the business. In recent years, tourists have
been more aware of the injuring of natural resources and environmental harms induced by
the hotels (Han and Kim, 2010), and that awareness certainly makes them choose a hotel with
green practices in operation. As the governments of different countries and citizens have
started to understand the significance of the environmental pressures and the resulting
perilous economic and health complications, the whole society is more prone and eager to
respond to applications and services based on “green” concerns (Yeung, 2004).
As we know, Green hotels are basically some possessions that are dedicated to nature and
whose administrators voluntarily introduce initiatives to save water, energy and reduce solid
waste – while saving money – to protect our one and only mother Earth (Lita et al., 2014).
While most tourism literatures usually study independently the relationship between
tangible and intangible elements of tourist satisfaction (Perovic et al., 2018), the green hotel
visit purpose is noticeably under-examined. But it is equally important to know the
underlying factors that work behind the customers’ green visit intentions so that the hotels
can reshape their operations in a way that best ensure the tourist satisfaction. Another study
displays that customers’ green attitudes have a close link with their conveyed plans of
visiting a green hotel, disseminating word-of-mouth about a green hotel and having a clear
intention of paying more for it (Lita et al., 2014). Nyilasy et al. (2014) opined in their literature
that customers can cynically respond to various environmental assertions due to their self-
sincerity. In this regard, past researches have recommended that consumers’ green
knowledge and concern can significantly trigger customers’ response towards green
initiatives (Mohr et al., 1998; Obermiller and Spangenberg, 1998), but still hospitality
literatures have been overdue in scrutinizing the influence of those factors on the behavioral
intentions of customers. Authors (Mainardes et al., 2017) have discovered behavioral
intention aspects of customers on green consumption to assist the sustainable movement in
the emerging economies. A study (Verma et al., 2019) also reflects on the attitude to green
hotels stating the extent to which consumers feel favorable about staying at green hotels
while traveling. On the other hand, some researchers studied on the starring role of green
trust in constructing green brands (Butt et al., 2017; Chen, 2010). A recent study (Sung et al.,
2021) also worked on the link between green trust and the theory of planned behavior (TPB)
to show how green trust influences customers’ willingness in determining green hotels visit Customers’
intentions. But not much study are found that considered customers’ knowledge and concern green hotel
about environment and how they are linked with their green trust in choosing green hotels to
stay or visit. Following the world-wide awareness regarding the green hotel concept, the
visit intention
tourists of Bangladesh have also started thinking of green choice. Realizing the underlying
reasons of customers’ green hotel visit intentions can provide a new avenue of transition in
hotel business operations that may help to reduce the environmental hazards in the long run.
Considering the mentioned facts, this study aims at analyzing the green hotel visit
intention in the context of established stimulus-organism-response (S-O-R) model, extended-
TPB (E-TPB), and social identity theory. The main purpose of the current research is to
identify the effect of customers’ perceived green knowledge and environmental concern on
their green hotel visit intentions with mediating impact of green trust. The result of the study
will bring better insights on green tourism strategies which may boost the overall
environmental awareness and customers’ knowledge and concern about environmental
obligation, sustainable services, and green consumption attitude.

1.1 Research gap and contribution of the current study

The term “green hotels” can be defined as eco-friendly hotels whose managers are willing to
implement strategies which can save water, minimize the usage of natural resources, reduce
the amount of solid waste to save money, and maintain ecological balance (Association, 2019).
Researchers concluded that green hotels can be defined as eco-friendly places that adopt
sustainability operational philosophies to minimize the negative impacts on the environment
(Tang and Lam, 2017). Han and Chan (2013) revealed in their qualitative study that
conserving natural resources is the key attribute of green hotels. Researchers (Verma and
Chandra, 2018) defined green hotels as environment-oriented establishments with proper
initiatives to guard the environment, although other researchers opined that no widespread
standards can define a hotel as a “green hotel” (Pizam, 2009). For our study, we consider green
hotels as the hotels that follow environment-saving measures and make these visible to the
customers (Trang et al., 2019).
Green hotels already have engrossed scholars’ attention as a research subject. Numerous
studies (Chang et al., 2019; Han and Kim, 2010; Verma and Chandra, 2018) have been
conducted to understand the intentions of customers to visit green hotels and underlying
reasons for choosing so. Researchers concluded that pro-environmental strategies such as
green hotel practices have every potential to contribute to sustainability as the hotel industry
is one of the most resource-intensive industries due to its multi-functions and relationship
with various stakeholders (Al-Aomar and Hussain, 2017).
Consumer concern for environmental sustainability and ecological balance within the
context of hospitality and tourism industry is inevitable (Wang et al., 2020). Customers all
over the world are becoming conscious specifically regarding the excessive amount of waste
and environmental damages caused by the hotel industry and they are continuously showing
their preferences to visit hotels which are practicing sustainable and green hotel strategies
(Han and Kim, 2010). According to the previous scholarly outcome, hotel consumers revealed
their intention to make pro-environmental decisions and indicated their positive attitudes
toward green hotel visit behavior accordingly (Rahman and Reynolds, 2016; Wang et al.,
2019). Researchers pointed out that demand for eco-friendly products and services are
increasing and consumers’ perception, attitude and behaviors are significant for the hotel
marketers to understand whether customers are properly aware of the green hotel attributes
and what they desire from a green hotel to explore their visit and revisit intention (Suki and
Suki, 2015).
Unfortunately, customers increasing environmental awareness and knowledge have not
been translated to actual green purchase behavior since their behavior may not fully reflect
APJBA their positive attitude toward green hotel selection (Rahman and Reynolds, 2016; Wang, 2020;
Wang et al., 2020). However, although a majority of the consumers claimed that their
purchase behavior is influenced by environmental concern, there exists a cognitive mismatch
and there appears insignificant evidence to support this kind of argument that customers’
environmental beliefs and attitudes translate into actual ecological purchase intention and
behaviors including green hotel choice (Mas’od and Chin, 2014; Wang et al., 2018; Kaufmann
et al., 2012). The variance in customers’ green hotel purchase decisions is influenced by their
certain attitude-behavior gap which illustrates an unsolved gap for identifying factors
influencing customers’ green hotel visit intention and actual behavior (Mas’od and Chin, 2014;
Wang et al., 2019).
Previous research identified that most of the studies related to green hotel visit intention
and customers green purchase behavior were conducted in Western countries like America,
Turkey or in small Asian regions such as Hong Kong and Taiwan. Regarding the context of
Asian countries, very limited researches (Hasan et al., 2020) are offered to apprehend the visit
intention of tourism customers, and research on customers’ green hotel visit behavior is still
in the primary stage with a lack of literature review and synchronized empirical framework
(Wang et al., 2018). On the other hand, there are 41 hotels in Bangladesh following sustainable
practices in their day-to-day operations, for example, Radisson Blue Water Garden, Amari
Dhaka, Four Points, and so on (Hotels, 2021), not much studies in our country considered
determinants of green hotel visit preference or how environmental knowledge, green concern
and green trust of Bangladeshi tourists are influencing them to pick a sustainable hotel.
Therefore, this research intends to bridge the relationship between environmental concern,
environmental knowledge, and green hotel visit intention through designing a crucial model
to integrate customers’ pro-environmental attitude toward green hotel choice in the context of
Bangladesh. This study also has encompassed the mediating impact of green trust to check
its relationship with perceived green knowledge and environmental concern in choosing
green hotels; which was not much used in previous studies. Furthermore, present study
linked the green hotel visit intentions with S-O-R model, E-TPB and social identity theory to
discourse the role of green knowledge, environmental concern, and green trust in the nexus.
Thus, the current study demonstrates various notable contributions to the existing
literatures through developing a research model which incorporates the influence of
environmental knowledge and concern on customers’ attitudes toward the green hotel with
green trust as a mediator in a non-western setting.

2. Literature review and hypothesis development

2.1 Theoretical discussions
The current study is predominantly evaluated and based upon S-O-R model and the E-TPB.
At first, the S-O-R model by Mehrabian and Russell (1974) proposes that environmental
stimuli can impact the emotional condition of people, which in turn touches on certain
approaches or responses. Here, the information regarding the environment and identification
with environmental terms (stimulus) can affect the green trust (organism), which may make
customers attracted to choose green hotels (response). Such affordances may cause a positive
plan to embrace green services and the intention to pay a premium for this (Balaji et al., 2019).
The second notion is the extended TPB (Han and Kim, 2010), where environmental
consciousness should be incorporated into the common TPB to develop an extended
understanding of customers’ attitudes, toward green hotels (Bashir et al., 2019). Here, a link is
proposed among environmental knowledge and concern, customers’ green trust and green
visit intention. Researchers (Choi et al., 2015) established that individual beliefs are connected
to the self-responsibility of environmentally-concerned consumers to visit green hotels.
Hence, people may choose green hotels due to the feeling of moral obligation, not just for Customers’
social norms (Bashir et al., 2019). green hotel
On the other hand, the study can also be analyzed on the basis of social identity theory
(Ashforth and Mael, 1989), where social communication processes and common social norms
visit intention
may influence the adoption of certain behavioral patterns (Balaji et al., 2019). Same authors
believed that customers choose products or services that match their self-identity in a social
context. As environmental behavior is a motivational and emotional process (Yadav et al.,
2019); the integration of S-O-R model with extended-TPB and social-identity theory would
provide a better understanding of customers’ environmental decision-making (Han and
Hyun, 2017).

2.2 Perceived green knowledge and green hotel visit intention

In the research arena of consumer behavior, knowledge has been considered as a vital
determinant influencing all the decision-making phases (Wang et al., 2018). Studies supported
that knowledge measures how customers assess the available products or services in the
market (Ostergaard and Bode, 2016). When we consider environmental or green knowledge, it
stands for individuals’ capacity to be aware of the ecological codes, concepts and manners
related with environmental goods or services (Ahmad and Thyagaraj, 2015). However, as
suggested by early researchers (Laroche et al., 2001) perceived green knowledge can be also
defined as eco-literacy to measure individuals’ ability to ascertain the symbols, aspects and
behaviors related to the environment and the whole eco-system. Mostafa (2007) defined
environmental knowledge in one of his studies as the individual knowledge about
environmental degradation, environment friendly products, measures to protect the
environment and overall sustainable development. Recent researches have considered
green knowledge as one prime factor that plays important role in elucidating green attitude,
environmental intentions and behavior (Jaiswal and Kant, 2018; Kumar et al., 2017).
Hypothetically, the green knowledge of customers plays an important part in facilitating
pro-environmental understanding and developing positive outlooks toward green choice
(Kumar et al., 2017; Maichum et al., 2016). Again, studies by Nor Azam et al. (2017) advocated
the positive link between environmental knowledge and perceived values of customers; thus,
environmental knowledge pointedly encourages values of customers regarding a green
product or service consumption (Suki and Suki, 2015). In addition to that, Hu et al. (2010)
suggested that perceived environmental knowledge may act as the crucial determinant of
customers’ intention to patronize green hotels and restaurants. Therefore, based on the
aforementioned discussion, the following hypothesis can be proposed:
H1. Perceived green knowledge positively influences customers’ green hotel visit
intention.

2.3 Perceived green knowledge and green trust

Customers’ environmental knowledge can enhance the trust for green products or services.
Green hotels may provide information about the environmental policies, which may help
build trust among the customers in return (Balaji et al., 2019). Studies also suggested that if
companies communicate their environmental measures to the customers, customers with
green knowledge get more enlightened about green initiatives (Gil and Jacob, 2018). Thus,
knowledge regarding the environment may increase customers’ green trust for green
services. Hence, we can propose the following:
H1a. Perceived green knowledge positively influences customers’ green trust.
APJBA 2.4 Environmental concern and green hotel visit intention
Environmental concern is one of the first conceptual terms used in research related to
environmental issues (Antil, 1984), which intends to describe the environmentally
accountable actions. Hosta and Zabkar (2021) supported the early view about an
environmental concern that it is a general approach toward difficulties in the natural
atmosphere (Abdul-Muhmin, 2007) and it can comprise either affirmative or negative
assessment of environmental glitches (De Pelsmacker and Janssens, 2007). Again, according
to Schuitema et al. (2013) an environmental concern can be defined as the attention and
responsiveness toward environmental matters. The findings of the earlier studies revealed
that environmental concern has a noteworthy influence on environment-friendly
consumption behavior (Brosdahl and Carpenter, 2010; Kim and Choi, 2005). Recent
scholars (Yue et al., 2020) also opined that the notion of environmental concern is generally
an operational concept, and researchers have different operational definitions of it. For
example, Felix et al. (2018) defined environmental concern as an imperative predictive
variable of to identify pro-environmental behavior, green motivation and sustainable
consumer behavior. Adnan et al. (2018) have measured the impact of environmental concern
on customer-norms to choose environment-oriented products. The same observation can be
made in the context of hotel industry and it is imperative to investigate the relationship
between hotel customers’ environmental concern and their green hotel visit intention:
H2. Environmental concern is significantly associated with customers’ green hotel visit
intention.

2.5 Environmental concern and green trust

Consumer trust is a critical determinant for shaping and enduring consumer attitudinal
behavior (Lee et al., 2011). Customers who are aware of the environmental issues may get
more interested in green services due to the presence of green trust in their concern. Gil and
Jacob (2018) specified the effect of customers’ emotional state on consumer behavior. Hence,
awareness and concern for the environment is such an emotion that may induce trust for
green products or services, such as green hotels. So, the following assumption can be
proposed:
H2a. Environmental concern is positively associated with customers’ green trust.

2.6 Green trust and green hotel visit intention

Customer trust plays a significant role in increasing market demand for green products and
services even if such services are premium-priced (Nuttavuthisit and Thøgersen, 2017). Some
researchers think that trust is having a meaning of accepting exposure based on some
optimistic expectations of uprightness and proficiency of another one (Lin et al., 2003). In the
tourism industry, trust is observed as a necessary requirement to institute a healthy and
sound affiliation between customers and company (Balaji et al., 2019). Moreover, customers’
green trust signifies the reliable, consistent, and regular environmental performance of
companies (Hameed and Waris, 2018). Researchers (Chen and Chang, 2012) also opined green
trust as a trustworthy and dependable ability of products or services to meet consumers’
beliefs and to ensure environmental protection. Green trust highlights the relationship
between consumers and the natural environment because of the presence of sustainability as
an effect of trust (Alamsyah et al., 2020). According to the researchers, green trust is viewed as
an indispensable condition for forming customer–company relationships, especially in the
context of the tourism and hospitality industry (Balaji et al., 2019). Green image certainly
influences customers’ trust toward green hotels and increases green customer loyalty
(Martınez, 2015). Hence, this study hypothesizes that the green trust of customers positively Customers’
affects their decision to visit green hotels. green hotel
H3. Green trust is positively associated with customers’ green hotel visit intention. visit intention

2.7 Mediating effect of green trust

In the current study, we propose the mediating part of green trust as the course for adopting
green hotels. According to Goh and Balaji (2016), trust is a must for promoting constructive
responses toward green hotels. Due to the dominance of sustainability and green concepts in
tourism segments (Pereira-Moliner et al., 2015), green initiatives of hotels may form a positive
brand image and increase green trust. Previous studies have verified that green trust is an
instantaneous upshot of a company’s environmental performance, which in turn, enriches
progressive consumer responses with full readiness to pay a premium price for the green
services (Yadav et al., 2019). Gil and Jacob (2018) also considered the mediating role of green
trust in their study to address issues relating to environmental preferences. Previous
scholarly writings revealed that customers’ lack of trust and confidence may negatively
affect their actual purchase behavior (Vermeir and Verbeke, 2008). Furthermore, green trust
has been applied as a mediator between numerous constructs to identify customers’ green
purchase intention and behavior (Amin and Tarun, 2020; Chen and Chang, 2012). Therefore,
for the current study, we assume that green trust mediates the relationship between
perceived consumer knowledge, environmental concern, and green hotel visit intention, and
the following hypothesis can be postulated:
H4. Green trust mediates the relationship between perceived green knowledge and
customers’ green hotel visit intention.
H5. Green trust mediates the relationship between environmental concern and
customers’ green hotel visit intention.
The proposed research framework of the study is shown in Figure 1. According to the
framework, perceived green knowledge and environmental concern have been considered
as the independent variables, and green hotel visit intention is treated as the dependent one.
The framework also takes green trust into account as the mediating variable to assess
the indirect effect of it between independent variables (perceived green knowledge,
environmental concern) and the dependent variable (green hotel visit intention)
(see Figure 2).

Figure 1.
Research framework
 ꞵ = 0.32
APJBA
p < 0.05

Perceived
Green
Knowledge ꞵ = 0.06, p < 0.05

Green Hotel
ꞵ = 0.28
Green Trust Visit Intention
p < 0.05 R2 = 0.346 R2 = 0.240
ꞵ = 0.20

p < 0.05
ꞵ = 0.41 ꞵ = 0.08, p < 0.05
Environmental
p < 0.05
Concern

Figure 2. ꞵ = 0.06
Model testing results
p < 0.05

3. Research method
3.1 Data and sampling
The population of our study comprises customers of Bangladeshi tourism business or
travelers of Bangladesh who have already stayed at hotels in different locations and also
have the plan to stay at hotels for a further visit in future, as the study aims to check the
determining factors in shaping the green hotel visit plan with the mediation of green trust
from the customers’ perspective. The researchers considered the capital city of Bangladesh,
Dhaka for data collection for the study. Here, investigators also took assistance from five
travel agencies to identify the sample and accumulate data. As the population size is
unknown; among the travelers, only working professionals from different public and private
organizations of Bangladesh who have visited different hotels in the last five years were
selected as the desired sample. So, judgmental sampling; alternatively recognized as
purposive sampling method was used where researchers used their understanding and
professional decree to select the respondents. According to Malhotra and Dash (2010), the
minimum sample size should be five times more than the number of variables. Again, the
sample size of relevant research work has also been considered while determining the sample
size for this study. The researchers considered distributing the questionnaire among 500
participants and this size is assumed adequate as a sample size between 30 and 500 is already
acceptable for most research studies (Sekaran and Bougie, 2019).
The survey took almost three months to be administered from mid-January to March of
2021. Due to the pandemic situation, questionnaires were mainly distributed through e-mail
or social media networks. A few questionnaires were distributed through personal visits as
well. At the beginning of the questionnaire, the authors clearly explained the concept of
“Green hotels” in order to make them understand the purpose of the study. Anonymity and
confidentiality were also ensured while collecting the responses. The response rate is 45.8%
and the researchers further considered evaluating responses to confirm the absence of
response method and non-response biases in this study.

3.2 Measurement
The present study used multi-item scales to examine all the proposed constructs. A
standard structured survey questionnaire was developed based on the prior studies. To
measure the green visit intention of the customers, we have referenced items from the study
of Tang and Lam (2017) and Chen and Chang (2012). Two items from the study of Ahmad Customers’
and Thyagaraj (2015) and another two from Yoon and Chen (2017) were considered for green hotel
measuring the green knowledge of hotel customers. Also, environmental concern was
measured with items adapted from Soyez (2012). Finally, to measure the mediating effect of
visit intention
green trust, we considered items from the previous research of Chen (2010). Moreover, the
survey questionnaire contains two parts. Part A of the questionnaire includes demographic
data (gender, age, experience, education level, income) of the respondents. Section B of the
questionnaire contains some close-ended questions under four sections. These sections
altogether include 16 close-ended questions to measure the voluntary green hotel choice of
participants. The respondents were requested to choose a suitable answer from the 5-point
Likert scale for each element. Considering the quantitative nature of the study, the authors
carefully decided to assess the relationship among the constructs by adopting Partial Least
Square (PLS) method. SPSS (version 21) and Smart PLS 3.3.3 were used as tools to analyze
the data and to assess both the measurement model and structural equation model. PLS
technique was considered here for data analysis because of its ability to measure all the
considered parallel paths with no requirement for a large sample size (Tehseen et al., 2020).
Choosing PLS-SEM has other reasons like the non-normal data, different relationships,
prediction-oriented character of the research, and so on (Hair et al., 2011).

4. Data analysis and findings

The researchers attempted to achieve valid data and hence, distributed the questionnaire
among 500 respondents of diversified attributes. We received 229 responses and of them,
only 213 responses were used for analysis due to missing data (Hair et al., 2017b) and data
normality (Shan et al., 2013) problems of 16 responses. As shown in Table 1, majority of the
respondents (63.9%) belong to the age group 18–34 years, 53.9% of the respondents were
male and 46.1% were female. Regarding the level of education, 66.6% of the respondents are
post-graduate, 20.8% of the respondents have completed graduation and 12.6% respondents
have MPhil/PhD equivalent educational background. Moreover, most of the participants
have less than 5 years of working experience, which represents the 60% of the total number
and 50.7% have an income of more than BDT 50,000.
According to researchers (Podsakoff et al., 2012), common method variance (CMV) might
occur when the constructs of the research framework are addressed using questionnaires. To
assess the common method variance; at first, we conducted Harman’s single factor test using
exploratory factor analysis. The outcome of the principal component analysis revealed that
the first factor did not explain more than 50% of the variance; it only explained 31% of the
variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). We also checked the correlation matrix and found that no

Demographics Attributes Sample number Percentage

Age 18–34 Years 136 63.9

35–54 Years 60 28.1
55 Years and Above 17 8.0
Gender Male 115 53.9
Female 98 46.1
Education Graduate 142 20.8
Post-Graduate 44 66.6
MPhil/Ph.D 27 12.6
Working Experience Less than 5 Years 128 60.1 Table 1.
More than 5 Years 85 39.9 Demographic
Income Level Less than 50K 105 49.3 characteristics of
More than 50K 108 50.7 respondents
APJBA correlations among constructs exceed the threshold of 0.90 (Pavlou et al., 2007). On the other
hand, proper confidentiality was ensured in the survey process to motivate the respondents
to provide accurate responses (Podsakoff et al., 2012). Hence, Harman’s single factor test,
correlation matrix, and procedural remedy confirm that our research is not subject to CMV.

4.1 Assessment of measurement model

The results of several measurement model tests are presented in this section. Researchers
supported such tests to demonstrate the psychometrical goodness of the measurement model
(Nunnally, 1994) and to ensure that errors are kept at acceptably low levels (Adetola et al.,
2021). Therefore, we considered both the convergent and discriminant validity outcomes in
the current study. As presented in Table 2, the values of Cronbach’s alpha are between 0.76
and 0.83. Composite Reliabilbility (CR) was considered to assess the internal consistency of
measurement items. In the present study, CR values ranged from 0.84 to 0.88 and the
suggested threshold CR value of more than 0.7 was taken into consideration (Hair et al., 2017).
In his study (Nunnally, 1994), advocated that a measurement model is reasoned to have
satisfactory soundness if both Cronbach’s alpha and CR values are all ≥ 0.7.
On the other hand, to attain acceptable convergent validity, factor loadings for each item
should exceed 0.708 and the average variance extracted (AVE) should exceed 0.50 (Hair et al.,
2017). As shown in Table 2, the range of the factor loadings of items was between 0.712 and
0.887. One item of environmental concern was deleted because of a low factor loading value.
The AVE of the considered constructs was all greater than the required criterion of 0.50

Cronbach’s
No Constructs Loadings alpha AVE CR

GHVI1 I am willing to stay at a green hotel when traveling 0.712 0.762 0.579 0.846
GHVI2 I plan to stay at a green hotel when traveling 0.832
GHVI3 I will make an effort to stay at a green hotel when 0.766
traveling
GHVI4 I am willing to spend extra to stay at a green hotel 0.729
when traveling
PGK1 I know more about recycling than the average person 0.754 0.797 0.622 0.868
PGK2 I understand the environmental phrases and symbols 0.810
on product package
PGK3 I know that I buy products and packages that are 0.800
environmentally safe
PGK4 I know how to select products and packages that 0.789
reduce the amount of waste ending up in landfills
EC1 It makes me sad to see natural environments 0.825 0.790 0.703 0.877
destroyed
EC2 I believe nature is important because of what it can 0.844
contribute to the pleasure and welfare of humans
EC3 We need to preserve resources to maintain a high 0.847
quality of life
GT1 I feel that green hotel’s environmental comments are 0.790 0.830 0.664 0.888
generally reliable
GT2 I feel that green hotel’s performance is generally 0.798
dependable
GT3 I feel that green hotel’s environmental arguments are 0.887
Table 2. generally trustworthy
Reliability and GT4 The green hotels generally keep promises and 0.781
convergent validity commitments for environmental protection
ranging in between 0.579 and 0.703. The result of the analysis (Table 2) shows that all the Customers’
values of factor loadings, Cronbach’s Alpha, AVE, and CR are within the acceptable standard green hotel
which satisfies the reliability and convergent validity of the current study.
Moreover, discriminant validity of each construct was checked using Fornell–Larcker
visit intention
criterion at first where AVE is equated with the correlation value of all other off-diagonal
items. Results in Table 3 showed that the square roots of diagonal AVE are larger than any of
the correlation values for other related constructs and such measurement is deemed to satisfy
the acceptable discriminant validity standard (Kock, 2014; Fornell and Larcker, 1981).
Discriminant validity was also checked using Heterotrait–Monotrait ratio (HTMT) proposed
by Henseler et al. (2015) which displays the approximation of the accurate correlation between
two constructs. A value of 0.85 or 0.90 for HTMT is considered as the standard value for
defining the discriminant validity through HTMT (Henseler et al., 2016). Table 4 shows that
HTMT criterion has been satisfied for our model as all the values are less than the
acceptability threshold (<0.85). As the outcomes confirm the acceptable discriminant validity
of the measurement model; we can proceed with the structural model analysis and
hypotheses testing in the next stage.

4.2 Assessment of structural model

The examination of the structural model involves analyzing the coefficient of determination
(R2), the significance of the path coefficients (b), effect size (f2), and predictive relevance (Q2).
The results in Table 5 indicate variance inflation factor (VIF), which was used to assess multi-
collinearity (Hair et al., 2011). Model deems to be free from both vertical and lateral collinearity
if the VIF coefficients are ≤ 3.3 (Kock, 2015). We can see in Table 5 that VIFs of the
independent variables are less than the threshold value of 3.3 (Hair et al., 2010); hence it
assures that collinearity is not a serious issue in the following structural model. Researchers
also studied the effect size (f2) of the present model. According to the recommendations
(Cohen, 1988)), the exogenous variables are considered as having small, medium, and large
effect for the f2 values of 0.02, 0.15, and 0 respectively. Thus, Table 6 shows that
environmental concern does not have any effect on GHVI, but it has a large effect on green
trust (f2 5 0.230). However, perceived green knowledge and green trust also have small to
moderate effects on GHVI (f2 5 0.0.037; 0.108). Also, the Stone–Geisser (Q2) coefficients
developed by Geisser (1974) and Stone (1974) were used following the blindfolding process
with a distance of 7 to assess the predictive relevance of the study (Adetola et al., 2021). In the
present model, Q2 was 0.125 for green hotel visit intention and 0.224 for green trusts. As the

GHVI GT PGK EC

GHVI 0.761 0.383 0.439 0.292 Table 3.

GT 0.383 0.815 0.442 0.523 Discriminant validity
PGK 0.439 0.442 0.788 0.367 test using Fornell–
EC 0.292 0.523 0.367 0.839 Larcker criterion

GHVI GT PGK

GT 0.466
PGK 0.534 0.540 Table 4.
EC 0.371 0.643 0.469 HTMT ratio
APJBA VIF

GHVI1 1.573
GHVI2 1.693
GHVI3 1.629
GHVI4 1.247
GT1 1.603
GT2 2.031
GT3 2.739
GT4 1.782
PGK1 1.463
PGK2 1.751
PGK3 1.586
PGK4 1.652
EC1 1.514
Table 5. EC2 1.738
VIF values EC3 1.842

GHVI GT PGK EC

GT 0.037
Table 6. PGK 0.108 0.110
Result of f2 Effect Size EC 0.004 0.230

values of Q2 are greater than 0, it is considered that the model has acceptable predictive
relevance (Hair et al., 2017b).
At this stage, bootstrapping technique was conducted with 1,000 resamples using PLS 3 to
acquire the standard path coefficients, t-values, and standard errors with a view to analyze
the proposed hypothesized relationships among variables (Hair et al., 2017). The mediation
effect was also tested based on the concept of Hayes and Preacher (2014) that surmises the
indirect impact of green trust on the green visit intentions. Cohen (1988) suggested that the
interval values for inferring R2 are as: for 0.02–0.12, weak; 0.13–0.25, moderate; and 0.26 and
above as having a substantial impact. In the study, the structural model was configured in
which the dependent variable is green hotel visit intention, which is explained 24% of the
total variance by the independent and mediating variables. On the other hand, perceived
green knowledge and environmental concern explain 34.6% of the variance of the mediating
variable; green trust. As presented in Table 7, the following paths were found significantly
positive at 95% level of significance: perceived green knowledge to GHVI (β 5 0.324, p < 0.05)

Hypothesis Relationship Direction St Beta St error t Stats p values Decision

H1 PGK → GHVI Positive 0.324 0.084 3.871 0.000 Supported

H1a PGK → GT Positive 0.289 0.059 4.920 0.000 Supported
H2 EC → GHVI Positive 0.065 0.084 0.778 0.218 Not Supported
H2a EC → GT Positive 0.417 0.057 7.311 0.000 Supported
H3 GT → GHVI Positive 0.206 0.093 2.223 0.013 Supported
Table 7. H4 PGK → GT → GHVI Positive 0.060 0.029 2.082 0.019 Supported
Testing of hypothesis H5 EC → GT → GHVI Positive 0.086 0.042 2.049 0.020 Supported
and green trust to GHVI (β 5 0.206, p < 0.05). Again, the paths from perceived green Customers’
knowledge to green trust (β 5 0.289, p < 0.05) and environmental concern to green trust green hotel
(β 5 0.417, p < 0.05) were positively significant. Therefore, the results supported the
relationship proposed in this study except that of environmental concern with green hotel
visit intention
visit intention (β 5 0.289, p > 0.05). However, the current research tested the mediation effect
of green trust on the relationship of perceived green knowledge and environmental concern
with green hotel visit intention of customers. Authors (Preacher and Hayes, 2008) opined that
if the confidence interval does not straddle at zero (0), the significant presence of mediation
can be considered. The mediating effect of green trust was found significant and positive in
considered relations, that is, between perceived green knowledge and GHVI (β 5 0.060,
p < 0.05), and environmental concern and GHVI (β 5 0.086, p < 0.05).

5. Discussions and implications of the study

The appeal for environmental protection is on increase and the perception of the hotel
customers about accepting green hotel services is still a debatable issue. This study analyzed
and tried to expand the existing knowledge of customers’ green understanding and concern
on the intention of visiting green hotels. The results presented the fact that the green
knowledge of customers has a direct relationship and can affect the decision of customers
green hotel visit intention. The results are similar to the findings of the previous research of
(Adetola et al., 2021) and Wang et al. (2020) where the researchers demonstrated that the
knowledge of customers regarding the environment can influence their intention to have
green products and services. Moreover, we know the environment-friendly hotels are most
costly, so customers’ value for the green hotel service should exceed the premium price
charged by the hotels. And the customers’ level of green knowledge determines the value of
the green hotel services. Therefore, green knowledge is an important antecedent in visiting
green hotels (Ward and Berno, 2011).
The environmental concern that is the individual accountability of the customers toward
the environment is expected to have a positive influence on choosing a green hotel. But
surprisingly, it plays an insignificant role in influencing the green hotel decision in
Bangladesh. The finding contradicts the early studies that if customers believe that their
green approach would produce positive outcomes, they would be more likely to be engaged in
that given behavior which may lead to make them pick a green hotel choice (Ajzen, 1991;
Demir et al., 2021; Jiang and Kim, 2015). In this regard, Dunlap and York (2008) emphasized on
the challenges with environmental behavior that might be biased by the unambiguous
environmental concern. Again, the environmental attitudes of the citizens significantly differ
across countries (Schultz and Zelezny, 1999) as different countries have different level of
awareness toward environmental risks. Although social identity theory says that customers
are concerned about the environment in choosing environment-friendly products and
services, but this has limited application as it fails to recognize differences in social identity
because of complicated history and culture (Huddy, 2001). So most common cause of getting
insignificant relation between environmental concern and green visit intention in the existing
study is that people of our country, as developing nationalities, yet to successfully believe
that the green practices adopted by them would be beneficial for the society as a whole in the
long run.
Green trust seems to have a dominant role which supports some prior studies (Chen and
Tung, 2014; Han and Kim, 2010) specifying that tourists’ assessment of staying at a green
hotel is a commanding facet in developing their intentions toward obtaining green
accommodations in future. The study demonstrated the positive relations of Green Trust on
green visit intentions. The result supports the extended TPB constructs that trust among
customers may help to get better behavioral control by reducing their social hesitation.
APJBA Hence, knowledge and concern about nature may influence customers to have a deep green
trust in green services. Again, the customers do not decide to visit green hotels just because of
their knowledge or concern rather their intention to visit the green hotel is extended with their
value to pro-environmental actions. This is demonstrated in the findings that green trust has
found a significant mediating effect on GHVI both with green knowledge and environmental
concern. The findings are consistent with the findings of Gil and Jacob (2018), Kim (2012) and
Chen and Chang (2012). Customers’ trust toward environmental initiatives enables them to
develop a stimulus to enforce them in choosing environment-friendly hotels and also
developing their psychological aspects of environmental welfare (Kim, 2012; Han and Kim,
2010). The result is well suited with the E-TPB (Han and Kim, 2010) in making a bond among
perceived green knowledge, environmental concern, and green visit intention. Therefore, the
direct and indirect relationship between PGK and GHVI is robust based on theories and
empirical results. The direct relationship between EC and GHVI is insignificant, but it
significantly influences customers’ green hotel visit intention with GT.
However, the insignificant role of environmental concern needs to be addressed to identify
silent factors challenging the stated relationship. Also, considering the idea of social identity
theory, the intention to stay in a green hotel can be associated with the pressure of creating a
self-identity based on what the pro-environmental knowledge, and perhaps these tourists
have a tendency to take pride in environmental protectionism by staying in a green hotel just
to reflect their pro-environmental compulsions (Nimri et al., 2020), although sometimes
barriers are observed by travelers, including cost, location and deficiency of information
about green hotels and so on (Nimri et al., 2017).

5.1 Theoretical and practical implications

The current study offers both practical and significant theoretical implications.
Theoretically, this research is the pioneer in developing a framework to identify the
factors influencing the hotel customers’ green visit intention in developing countries like
Bangladesh in a more comprehensive and detailed manner. The study also demonstrates how
well it be suited to the existing theory of E-TPB. The study also provides an understanding of
mediating role of green trust based on an S-O-R model. Besides theoretical contribution, the
study has a number of practical implications which will help the hospitality marketers in
predicting their customers’ behavior and formulating strategies in adopting and developing
green initiatives in their products and services. Firstly, the study has provided some visions
for the marketers of hotel industry in formulating various green strategies on how to attract
customers to purchase their green hotel accommodation. As green knowledge and green trust
contribute to making a green visit choice, marketers should take adequate awareness
programs to let the customers know what consequences may arrive if they do not go for a
green hotel choice. Secondly, the study might motivate hotel managers to advertise their
environmental programs along with traditional customer support programs to achieve trust.
This can be an advanced effective tactic to gain potential environmentally mindful customers
and retain existing ones, and also to initiate their green campaigns at the same time. And to do
so, different attributes of green hotels should be introduced by the marketers of the hotel
industry so that they can achieve the trust of customers. This achieved green trust may be
helpful in maintaining good customer relationships and also to get new customers in the long
run. Finally, the findings of this study can help the marketers of environmentally sensitive
industries like Agriculture Pharmaceutical and Chemical, etc. in predicting their customers’
intention to accept eco-friendly products and services. The study can also help them to
develop a model for pricing their eco-friendly products as customers value the environmental
initiatives of the organizations for maintaining a sustainable society. In short, this study has
achieved the objective of analyzing the green hotel visit intention and examining the effect of
perceived green knowledge, environmental concern, and green trust on customers’ green Customers’
hotel visit intention. The environmental concern and ecological sustainability issues are green hotel
significantly progressing and the customers of all stages are becoming sensible of the
advantages of engaging in sustainability and environmental-friendly activities. There is no
visit intention
doubt about the fact that environmental sustainability is considered as one of the crucial
issues throughout the globe, particularly in the tourism industry. Therefore, the tourism
industry can play a vital role in raising awareness among consumers and educating
customers through the promotion and implementation of sustainable hotel practices. To
conclude, the present research is just a little effort which has been implemented to investigate
how green trust influences the perceived environmental knowledge, environmental concern
to decide green hotel visit intention of the hotel customers of Bangladesh.

5.2 Limitations of the study and future research direction

There are limitations related to this study which may direct future researchers’ attempt to
identify the green hotel visit intention of the customers. The first limitation is related to the
sampling method used for this study. Non-probability sampling method was used and data
was collected data from the geographically diverse sample groups based on the convenience
of the researchers. Therefore, the outcome of the study may not be absolutely generalized to
the entire population. The preparation of the paper is subject to time constraints with regard
to collecting data and analyzing it, and hence, the participants were only limited to Dhaka
city. Therefore, the results may not be applied for Bangladeshi consumers as a whole. It is
suggested for future researchers to use longitudinal study and to collect data from a more
diverse and larger sample for producing a better outcome and for getting the reflection of
actual behavior. Thirdly, studies (Lita et al., 2014) suggest that a range of factors can influence
the green hotel visit intention of customers like customers’ attitude, environmental friendly
activities of hotels, social media influence, tourists’ satisfaction, tangible and intangible
elements of tourism product etc. So, it is evident that the scope of the study can consider many
other variables for addressing the same problem. At the same time, this study only addressed
mediating variable as green trust; hence, future researchers should also examine other
mediating or moderating variables (e.g. green image, consumption values, self-identity) to
measure the related issues.

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Corresponding author
Nafia Sultana can be contacted at: nafia.cubd@gmail.com

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