The Factors Affecting Environmental Sustainability Behaviour in the Malaysian Hotel Industry

Abstract

Abstract Recently, environmental sustainability has become a critical topic in the 21st century. Responsible tourism prioritises resource efficiency, community involvement, and biodiversity. This aligns with the overarching objective of advocating for practices that support environmental sustainability. Environmental degradation is caused by massive urbanisation, industrialization, and deforestation, which has led to greenhouse effects, global warming, climate change, acid rain, and pollution at alarming levels. Studying human attitudes and behaviour is crucial for understanding how people think about environmental and sustainability issues. Therefore, this study developed five hypotheses with four independent variables (personal values, environmental knowledge, environmental awareness, social norms and environmental attitudes) and a dependent variable (environmental sustainability behaviour) focusing on employees in the Malaysian hotel industry. It utilized quantitative techniques through questionnaires to collect responses and examine the proposed hypotheses in order to achieve the research objectives. A total of 234 questionnaires were collected from hotels in Malaysia and analyzed using PLS-SEM. The findings indicated that personal values, environmental awareness and environmental attitudes had a significant relationship with environmental sustainability behaviour while environmental knowledge and social norms were not significantly related to environmental sustainability behaviour. The study provides theoretical and practical implications for policymakers and industry practitioners.