PULLMAN, Wash. – Many travelers say they would prefer to stay at eco-friendly hotels, but lodging facilities don’t benefit financially from acquiring certification for green business practices, new research shows.
Researchers compared five years’ worth of financial data for hotels with and without third-party audits for practices like saving energy, conserving water and recycling. The green-certified hotels performed no better than hotels without the certification, although displaying comparable pricing information and informing consumers about what green certification entails could boost future sales, researchers said.
“Our work examines the gap between customers’ intent to…