Environmental sustainability on tourist hotels' image development

Abstract

Previous studies are lacking that explore the added values of sustainable practices perceived by consumers. To achieve a balanced development of economy and environmental protection, tourist hotels should develop a service differentiation strategy based on the sustainable practices. By examining the environmental characteristics and performing art in marketing images of a tourist hotel that are attractive to customers, this study built on the attention restoration theory and triple-bottom-line perspective, and employed the eye-tracking analysis technique to investigate the effect of image characteristics on customers' visual attention. Sixty-three individuals participated in the experiment and observed the performing arts images. This study confirmed that, first, a natural image could attract more of customers' visual attention than a built image. In particular, the coupling of nature and performing arts can get the most visual attention from customers. Second, older adults prefer natural images, but younger adults do not. However, there is no significant difference in the impact of gender on the customer's visual attention. Those findings imply that tourist hotels should use the marketing image design to highlight the value-added services derived from environmental protection.