Andrés Jesús Marchante-Mera

How Does Respect for the Environment Affect Final Prices in the Hospitality Sector? A Hedonic Pricing Approach

Hedonic pricing theory states that the price of a room is determined by a set of characteristics (e.g., structural, location, and environmental) of the establishment. Set within the framework of this methodology, and using raw data from the Quality, Productivity, and Competitiveness in the Hospitality Industry for Andalusia project, this article discusses the impact on room pricing of hotels implementing environmental sustainability measures based on a sample of 232 hotels (3-, 4-, and 5-stars) in Andalusia (Southern Spain). This sample is statistically representative of hotel accommodations in the region. A distinguishing feature of this study is the creation of a variable derived from the replies given by hotel managers to a questionnaire designed by the authors. The questionnaire presented questions about the measures the managers implemented in their establishments to improve environmental sustainability. The use of this variable in the semilogarithmic hedonic model suggests that the prices of hotel rooms are 5.15-percent higher for each environmentally sustainable measure implemented in the hotel; in some cases, the price increase could be as much as 36.05 percent. Other variables that were also introduced in the model yielded estimates consistent with those obtained in previous studies.

Educational mismatch and returns on human capital in the Spanish hospitality and travel agency sectors.

The authors analyse the returns on human capital and the importance of educational mismatch in determining wages in the Spanish hospitality and the travel agency sectors. In addition, they assess the impact of several job characteristics (business size, full-time contracts and permanent contracts) and personal characteristics (gender and worker nationality) on wages. Using an expanded Mincerian wage equation and data from the 2006 Spanish Wage Structure Survey, they estimate separate regressions for each educational group analysed: overeducated, undereducated and adequately educated workers. The results show that the return on human capital and the real hourly wage may be quantitatively influenced by educational mismatch. Moreover, evidence is presented regarding the impact of firm size on wage returns and the data also reveal wage differentials by the gender and nationality of workers in the Spanish hospitality industry.

Explaining tourists´ attitudes to environmental support: a multilevel approach

ABSTRACT This article contributes to a better understanding of tourists’ attitudes to environmental support when they make their holiday plans. Modelling these decisions is a challenge because although environmental concerns are heterogeneous across countries, they also depend on the individual characteristics of the tourists from each country. This article uses a multilevel approach, using a two-level structure, in which individuals are nested into countries. This approach may be helpful for understanding the contextual and compositional effects simultaneously. The estimates from a two-level random intercept logistic model and the post-estimation analysis, based on non-parametric techniques, demonstrate that the effects of country vary randomly, and that there is significant variance in the level of tourists´ environmental support within and between countries. Regarding the contextual effect, the post-materialist hypothesis explained most of the heterogeneity between the EU-27 countries. The affluence hypothesis was rejected and the challenge response hypothesis was only partially supported. The results from the compositional effect support the attribution hypothesis, demonstrating that the environmental concern of tourists is higher when travelling domestically than abroad.