Overcoming energy barriers in hotels' green programs

Energy barriers -organisational inertia, staff resistance, employees' disengagement and lack of environmental awareness- often hinder hotels' green and prosocial initiatives. This paper explores the ways that can reinvigorate hotels' green programs and the managerial impulses that are essential for the long-term implementation. Using mixed methodology approach in our 18-month evidence-based action research, we investigate hotel guests' actual behaviour, explore how green programs can be maintained, and identify the actions affecting the uptake of the program to forgo daily room cleaning. Drawing upon warm glow and transition state theories, we determine when and how long-term green programs should be given ‘energy boosts’. We contribute to tourism research in showcasing how committed leadership and employees can take specific actions to overcome the energy barriers that can cause a green program to fail, and it also underscores the implications for situations in which management goals regularly face ‘energy barriers’ that must be overcome.