What affects the use of green technology in hotels? Assessing hotel management viewpoint using natural language processing based qualitative study

Abstract

Hotels across the globe are trying to adopt green technologies for reducing the negative impact of the hospitality segment on the environment. However, the implementation of green technologies in hotels can be affected by the perspectives of managers. There is a need to assess the views of managers regarding the enablers, barriers and skill-sets that affect the adoption of green technologies in hotels. Existing studies fail to draw a proper link between the factors that affect green technology use in hotels and the website content of green hotels. Semi-structured interviews of fifteen managers and topic-modeling of the website content of forty-one Indian green hotels reveal that there is a gap in communications and awareness. The qualitative study using a grounded theory and phenomenology approach has found motivators like, cost reduction, value-for-nature, and barriers like, misperception of customers, high cost. The study highlighted the importance of green skills as a moderator.