Keywords

1 Introduction

Tourism has experienced significant growth in recent decades, becoming one of the main industries worldwide (Sugathan & Roopak, 2020). However, this tourism boom has also given rise to a series of environmental concerns, especially in relation to the ecological footprint generated by this activity (Kongbuamai et al., 2020). The Ecological Footprint (HE) is a methodology widely used in the evaluation of the environmental impact of human activities due to its ability to quantitatively represent the degree to which human beings are consuming the regenerative capacity of the biosphere, and to compare said consumption with the amount of capacity still available (Goldfinger et al., 2014).

In the context of tourism, the ecological footprint has become a topic of growing interest and concern (El Archi et al., 2023; Guan et al., 2022), since the tourism sector is directly linked to significant energy consumption from fossil fuels, especially through transportation, which represents more than 75% of the total carbon emissions related to tourism activities (Zhang & Liu, 2019). In addition, for the proper development and operation of tourism infrastructure, excessive exploration of natural resources is required, which contributes to the increase in the carbon footprint and the depletion of biological capacity (Guan et al., 2022; Nathaniel et al., 2021; Razzaq et al., 2021).

In this sense, the measurement of the ecological footprint generated by tourism has become a crucial area of study to understand and address the associated environmental challenges. According to Ştefănică et al. (2021) , the ecological footprint of tourism can cover multiple dimensions, such as the emission of greenhouse gases, energy consumption, the generation of solid and liquid waste, the overexploitation of natural resources and the loss of biodiversity. These dimensions are intrinsically linked to tourism activities, from the transportation used to reach destinations to management practices and operation of tourism facilities.

Within the tourism sector, hotels play a prominent role in generating an ecological footprint due to their size, infrastructure, and daily operations. The construction and maintenance of hotels require large amounts of energy and natural resources, which contributes to their depletion and the emission of greenhouse gases. In addition, the provision of services such as water supply, waste management, and the consumption of food and cleaning products also generates a significant environmental impact.

Recent research has highlighted the importance of measuring and mitigating the ecological footprint of hotels. According to Chan (2021a, b), the precise and systematic measurement of the ecological footprint of hotels can help identify areas for improvement and establish effective strategies to reduce their environmental impact. This implies evaluating both direct emissions (for example, those generated by energy consumption in hotel facilities) and indirect emissions (for example, those associated with the provision of food and other external services).

The measurement of the ecological footprint of hotels has become a constantly evolving field of study, with the development of different methodologies and tools to assess their environmental impact. For example, the Hotel Footprinting Protocol developed by the Global Initiative for Sustainable Tourism (GSTC) provides a framework for quantifying and monitoring the ecological footprint of hotels in key aspects such as energy, water and resource consumption.

The last decade has seen significant growth in the tourism and hospitality literature on corporate social responsibility (CSR) (Font & Lynes, 2018), as the local population has also radically changed their perceptions (Goodwin, 2017). In addition, contemporary society gives more and more importance to health and well-being, physical and mental, and in general to quality of life (Edlin & Golanty, 2015). These health and well-being for all are key public values for most governments (United Nations, 2019), and are also basic needs and a human right, both crucial to achieving sustainable societies (Von Heimburg & Ness, 2021; United Nations, 2019; World Health Organization, 2016). Thorne (2021) indicates that this situation leads consumers to travel in order to meet these well-being and sustainability expectations, better known in the literature as “LOHAS” (Lifestyle of Health and Sustainability) (Pícha & Navrátil, 2019). Therefore, increasing the number of tourism companies that develop strategies for sustainable growth will also contribute positively to the commercial growth of the tourism sector (Aksöz et al., 2021).

Sustainability in the tourist accommodation sector is essential to mitigate environmental impact and contribute to community development (Ferreira et al., 2022; Font & Lynes, 2018). The implementation of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiatives has been highlighted as an effective way to achieve these objectives, while allowing sustainability, value creation and competitive advantage to be achieved (Bohdanowicz & Zientara, 2008; Cheng & Ding, 2021). In particular, the hotel industry has received attention due to its considerable financial gains and its influence on society (Wong et al., 2021).

According to Lewis (2021), CSR is of vital importance in the hotel industry, as it promotes responsible business practices that are beneficial to society. Research such as that of Wang et al. (2018) and Ferreira et al. (2022) have studied the effects of CSR practices in the context of the hotel industry, demonstrating its importance and effectiveness in addressing environmental challenges.

The environmental impact of hotels is significant, contributing approximately 60 million tons of CO2 emissions annually and representing 1% of global carbon emissions (Lewis, 2021). It is evident that reducing the carbon footprint has become a key strategy to address this environmental problem. In addition, the recent implementation of Decree 390/2021 has promoted the energy certification of buildings, focusing on sustainability and its integration as a profitable business model in hotels.

Although marketing research in hospitality and tourism is abundant, the use of experimental design has been underutilized, mainly due to a lack of familiarity with this approach (Fong et al., 2016; Line & Runyan, 2012). However, the experimental design offers significant advantages, especially in the ability to control for external variables and examine causal relationships (Fong et al., 2016; Sparks & Browning, 2011; Sun et al., 2020).

Most of the experimental articles related to hospitality and tourism use the theory of random utility as a fundamental concept (Chou & Chen, 2014; Lee & Yoo, 2015; Sun et al., 2020), based on two components, one variable and measurable (iq), which is the function of the attributes (Xiq), and another stochastic (Eiq), which reflects, in addition to measurement and observation errors, tastes, customs, etc. of each individual. One of the experimental designs, the discrete choice model, is closely related to random utility theory, and has been adopted to examine the importance of attributes such as cities and hotels (Crouch et al., 2019; Masiero et al., 2019; Sun et al., 2020).

For example, Martin et al. (2017) examined the influence of tourists' psychological entitlement on hotel selection, finding that tourists tend to avoid hotels with great cultural distance. Kawanaka et al. (2020), studied the effect of gamification on tourist behavior and tourist satisfaction through an experimental case study. Gavilan et al. (2018) examined the impacts of online rating comments on consumer intention to book hotels through a full factorial design and revealed the interaction between ratings and online comments.

Although some companies in the hotel industry have begun to consider implementing programs that involve their stakeholders so that they can reduce their carbon footprints together, which may include saving energy and water, recycling solid waste and of food, the construction of LEED-certified buildings, and the implementation of formal environmental management systems (EMS), which can result in awards from local and international green initiatives (Chan, 2021a, b), so far only a few researchers have analyzed the influence that the implementation of these measures exerts on the consumer. In addition, in online purchase decisions, the consumer receives general information about what they are going to book, but very little about the environmental impact of their stay, or the measures taken by these hotels to contribute to it. Increasingly, different chains, such as Vincci Hotels, are incorporating carbon footprint calculators for guests into their web pages. However, no research to our knowledge has investigated the interaction between the influence that knowledge of these measures and price may have on consumer purchasing decisions.

The objective of this study is to analyze the state of the art of the influence of this carbon footprint reduction in tourist accommodation, especially hotels. This research presents the detailed application of the Knowledge Development Process—Constructivist Methodology (Proknow-C), through the creation of a relevant bibliographic portfolio through bibliometric analysis, managing to select those works highly aligned with this research topic. This constitutes an analytical study of accumulated knowledge that starts from documentary research, thanks to which we can carry out the study of accumulated knowledge within a specific area (Molina, 2005). The objective of this modality is to inventory and systematize production in an area of knowledge, an exercise that should not remain only in the inventory, but rather transcend beyond, since it allows for a deep reflection on the trends and gaps in a specific area (Vargas & Calvo, 1987). Subsequently, we will analyze the results obtained with Bibliometrix, which is an R statistical package to analyze and visualize bibliographic data from WoS and Scopus databases.

The exhaustive review of the literature carried out reveals the accumulated knowledge on these aspects and makes explicit their antecedents, causes, detection models and solutions that allow progress towards more sustainable tourism development.

2 Methodology

For the selection of the theoretical framework and construction of the necessary knowledge, the method used was based on the Proknow-C (Knowledge Development Process - Constructivist) methodology, proposed by Ensslin et al. (2010), which consists of structuring a review of the literature to build knowledge and select journals for its theoretical foundation (Vieira et al., 2019).

The objective was to carry out a systemic review in order to locate the most relevant studies based on the keywords of this research (Ravindran & Shankar, 2015), as well as a bibliometric analysis of the scientific production in this regard (Duque & Cervantes-Cervantes, 2019) by using the Bibliometrix program. The study was designed to fill in the gaps of previous reviews, examining the status, trends, and possible areas of future research, in a way that provides an overview of the research topic. For this reason, this research was carried out through a qualitative and interpretive design, which determined the procedure for selection, access and registration of the documentary sample (Vargas et al., 2015). In this way, an overview of all the research axes investigated is presented, with an interdisciplinary and comprehensive approach (Jurado et al., 2020). The design of the methodological process is organized in three phases, which are explained below.

In the first two phases, the steps followed, based on those proposed by de Carvalho et al. (2020), were the following: 1. Definition of keywords; 2. Definition of databases; 3. Search for articles in the databases with the keywords; 3. Keyword stickiness test app.; 4. Elimination of repeated articles; 5. Alignment by reading the title; 6. Alignment as scientific recognition, for example, number of citations and recent articles; 7. Alignment by reading the abstract; 8. Alignment by complete reading of articles: descriptive bibliometric and systematic analysis.

In the first phase, the lines of investigation or search are established. In our case, only one research axis is established, which is “carbon footprint reduction measures in accommodation”. For our research axis, the corresponding keywords are established: carbon footprint, accommodation and hotel.

The multidisciplinary nature of tourism led to the selection of the Web of Science database, as it is the main international and multidisciplinary database that indexes only the most cited journals in their respective areas.

The search fields were used: title, abstract and keywords, and the years were restricted to the periods 1900–2021, for articles from scientific journals. The search was carried out using the following search terms, and with the boolean operators AND and OR: Carbon footprint AND (accommodation OR hotel).

Completing this first phase and to obtain the gross publication bank, an adherence test of articles with keywords was carried out, which consisted of randomly selecting several from the aforementioned bank, in order to identify the keywords of each one of them., to determine if the title, keywords or abstract are those defined in this research, so that the portfolio is as aligned as possible (dos Santos Matos & Petri, 2015).

The second phase begins with the exclusion of those that were duplicates once the first bank of gross articles of all the research axes was obtained. Since in our case we only used WOS as the database, it was not necessary to perform this step. Next, the titles were read, and from there the scientific recognition was verified by searching for the number of citations that each article had in the consulted databases. Those discarded due to their lack of scientific recognition were subjected to a re-evaluation that is detailed below. Subsequently, the abstracts of the articles were read, to select those aligned with the research topic, and the complete reading of the texts was carried out, and the bibliometric and systematic descriptive analyzes were carried out (Ensslin et al., 2010; Ravindran & Shankar, 2015; Vieira et al., 2019).

A bibliometric analysis of the results obtained was carried out using the Bibliometrix program. Various studies have highlighted the relevance and role of R and its packages in various scientific fields. For example, Li and Yan (2018) carried out a study and mapping of the use of R and its packages in Public Library of Science (PLoS) articles. Bibliometrix, for its part, is a statistical R package that allows analyzing and visualizing bibliographic data from WoS and Scopus databases. In our case, we use the WoS database. Additionally, R forms an open source environment ecosystem encompassing statistical algorithms, mathematical functionality, and visualization capabilities, making it an ideal choice for bibliometric analysis. R is compatible with Windows and Linux operating systems and has a graphical user interface (RStudio), making it easy to use for both novice and expert users.

3 Analysis and Results

With the established keywords (carbon footprint, accommodation and hotel) 161 were obtained from Web of Science. After performing the adherence test and the alignment by reading the title, 133 were discarded because they were not aligned with the objective of the research, finally resulting in 28 articles.

The alignment by scientific recognition was carried out, of which 12 were discarded for being cited less than 10 times, passing the remaining 16 to the next phase. However, those 12 discarded went through a re-evaluation, in which 6 articles were reincorporated to continue their analysis, which are added to the 16 previously mentioned, making a total of 22 articles.

Subsequently, the abstracts of the 22 articles were read, to make the selection of those that were aligned with the research topic, discarding 7. In the next phase, the accessibility of the articles was checked, discarding 8 in this process. Finally, the texts of the remaining 7 were accessed for their reading and review of the required information and the descriptive bibliometric and systematic analyzes were carried out, resulting in these being the final articles of the entire process, since on this occasion, none was discarded (Ensslin et al., 2010; Ravindran & Shankar, 2015; Vieira et al., 2019).

The analysis plan consisted of two readings: a linear one that required the consecutive review of the information obtained in the bibliographic sources, and a cross-sectional one that allowed the comparison of the sources from the applied categories to identify repetitions, gaps, confirmations, extensions, shortcomings, as well as the quality and quality of the information on the object of investigation.

The 7 articles were entered into the Bibliometrix program, obtaining the following results.

In Fig. 1, we can see, first of all, the wordcloud with the most relevant words that we find in common in the 7 articles. The results show us a combination of words closely related to our line of research. It is interesting how in all the articles there are words related to corporate social responsibility, the life cycle of products, supply chains, reducing the carbon footprint, the sustainable and economic development of cities and urban tourism and in general terms that encompass the concept of sustainability. This shows that our search has been appropriate for the topic investigated, and that the methodology has been effective in finding a bank of articles aligned with our research topic.

Fig. 1
A word cloud. It consists of words like performance, energy use, life-cycle, emissions, consumption, supply chain, reduction, framework, products, carbon footprint, waste, sector, impacts, companies, food waste, and travel.

Source Bibliometrix data

Wordcloud.

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We can find the Treemap as well in Table 1. This is interesting, since, in addition to seeing the words that are most repeated in our texts and the interrelation between them, it also allows us to see in what percentage each one appears and, therefore, which are the most repeated in our articles, as well as the evolution and frequency of the words over time (Fig. 2).

Table 1 Treemap word percentages
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Fig. 2
A multiple-line graph of cumulative occurrences of words versus the years from 2017 to 2022. It plots lines for 10 terms that first remain the same until 2019 or 2020 or 2021 or 2022, then rise steeply.

Source Bibliometrix data

Words’ frequency over Time.

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On the other hand, Fig. 3 shows the thematic maps with their respective correlations. These interrelationships of words are linked to the concept of sustainability, responsible tourism, reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and the importance of making conscious decisions to minimize the environmental impact in the tourism sector and in the supply chain of related products. All of them are grouped into sets that in turn are interrelated with each other, thanks to which we can see once again how all our articles are aligned with each other, and with our line of research.

Fig. 3
A color-gradient clustered keyword network visualization map. Some of the keywords are performance, life cycle, consumption, emissions, and supply chain. One cluster is not connected, which consists of carbon footprint, moderating role, mediating role, inclusive leadership, and C S R keywords.

Source Bibliometrix data

Thematic map.

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Continuing on, in Fig. 4, we see a very interesting data, the most relevant sources of publication. Thanks to this analysis, we can see in which magazines the authors usually publish, which are the topics that attract the most attention in each magazine, or what type of articles they usually publish.

Fig. 4
A horizontal lollipop chart of the number of documents versus 6 sources of publication. Sustainability is the most relevant source with 2 documents, while others are the least relevant with 1 document.

Source Bibliometrix data

Most relevant sources of publication.

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On Table 2, we see the production of each author over time. This will allow us to analyze how they have evolved over time, who has the most scientific production, the journals in which they write the most and the years of publication.

Table 2 Authors production over time
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Finally, it is also interesting to see how they show us the scientific production of each country of the articles (Table 3).

Table 3 Countries’ scientific production
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4 Conclusions

The methodology applied in this study (ProKnow-C) has been shown to be effective in meeting the objective of selecting and analyzing a consistent bibliographic portfolio. Through the bibliometric analysis, it was possible to identify relevant data from the 7 articles in the final portfolio, such as the main words and their correlation, the main authors, the production of said authors over time, etc., which can be presented as an opportunity for future researchers. One of the results to highlight is the situation of Spain as the second country with the most scientific production on the subject, after China, which is in first place. Tourism, and in particular hotels, generate a significant ecological footprint that requires proper assessment and management. The measurement of this ecological footprint has become essential to understand and address the environmental impacts associated with tourism. As we move towards a more sustainable approach in the hospitality industry, it is essential to employ rigorous methodologies and appropriate tools to assess and reduce the ecological footprint of hotels.

Therefore, the present research can be used as a guide for the construction of knowledge in a systematic way and provides, both academics and professionals, a better overview to understand the contributions of the carbon footprint in the accommodation reservation, especially hotels, as a reference point for future research.