Impact On Tourist’s Switching Intention with The Mediating Effect of the Tourist’s Attitude Towards Greenwashing: Special Reference to Sri Lankan Hotel Chains

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify how greenwashing practices at the hotel chains in Sri Lanka would impact on the tourist‟s switching intention via the mediating effect of tourist‟s attitude towards greenwashing practices of hotels. Therefore, this research tries filling the empirical gap of the impact of greenwashing on the switching intention with the mediation effect, considering the scarcity of researches conducted on this phenomenon. The considered sample consisted of 200 tourists who stayed at green/eco-friendly hotels. A questionnaire was distributed for primary data collection to identify the tourists‟ perspective towards greenwashing practices, as consumer behaviour related aspects such as attitude, is considered an influential factor leading to purchase intention, switching intention etc. Therefore, the first part of the questionnaire was developed in order to measure greenwashing practices at the hotels, while the second and third sections developed were on tourist‟s attitude towards greenwashing practices and switching intention respectively. The analysis was then conducted to identify the impact of greenwashing on the switching intention of the tourists via the mediating effect of the attitude towards greenwashing practices by using both Smart PLS and SPSS software. Thus, this study found that there is a full mediation effect on the correlation between greenwashing and switching intention. The impact on tourist‟s switching intention with the mediating effect of the attitude towards greenwashing, in the context of Sri Lankan hotel chain was hence proven by this contemporary study.