The Marriage Between Luxury Hospitality, Ecotourism, and Social Initiatives: A New Business Model from Italy

Silvia Fissi, Elena Gori, Marco Contri and Alberto Romolini ()
Additional contact information
Silvia Fissi: Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, 50127 Firenze, Italy
Elena Gori: Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, 50127 Firenze, Italy
Marco Contri: Department of Economics and Management, University of Florence, 50127 Firenze, Italy
Alberto Romolini: Faculty of Economy and Law, International Telematic University Uninettuno, 00186 Roma, Italy

Sustainability, 2024, vol. 16, issue 20, 1-13

Abstract: Over the last few years, the hospitality industry has increasingly embraced green practices. Indeed, tourists pay more attention to the sustainability actions of accommodations nowadays, demonstrating positive attitudes towards those implementing sustainable initiatives. Against this backdrop, “greening” a hotel has become a key driver of success for hotel operators to attract and retain these emerging eco-friendly travelers. Accordingly, many hotels worldwide have started implementing green management practices and adopting new business models. However, this is particularly difficult for luxury hotels, where combining luxury characteristics and sustainability is a challenging and ongoing issue. This research aims to investigate the unique business model of a luxury eco-hotel sited in a WWF-affiliated reserve and belonging to a social foundation group. Our findings not only demonstrate that it is possible to combine sustainability and luxury but also to depict a new form of business model that integrates social and environmental dimensions.

Keywords: luxury eco-hotel; sustainability; luxury hospitality; business model; sustainable tourism; Italy (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/20/8982/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/16/20/8982/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:16:y:2024:i:20:p:8982-:d:1500527

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().