“Green” attributes and customer satisfaction : Optimization of resource allocation and performance

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to address issues of performance optimization through accounting for asymmetric responses of customer satisfaction to different types of product or service attributes: core, facilitating and “green” (eco‐friendly). The primary research inquiry was to explore how these attributes affect customer satisfaction and account for interactions among them in order to identify an optimal combination that would maximize customer satisfaction in lodging industry settings. Design/methodology/approach – An experimental design and a web‐based survey were used to collect data from a convenience sample of faculty and staff of two US universities. Univariate and regression analysis were two primary methods of data analysis. Findings – The findings confirmed non‐linear nature of customer satisfaction response and indicated that “green” attributes impact customer satisfaction similarly to facilitating attributes but differently from the core type of attributes in the context of lodging industry. Research limitations/implications – Generalizability of the findings is bounded by convenience sampling technique. Additionally, only limited number of hotel attributes was examined. Practical implications – The current findings help to solve the problem of performance optimization and allow creating hotel offerings that yield maximum levels of customer satisfaction and optimal resource allocation. Originality/value – The study provides additional knowledge about factor structure of customer satisfaction and points on the place and role of “green” attributes in formation of CS in the context of lodging industry.