Environmental Concern and Green Hotel Certifications

\nThe requirement for tourist products and services that ensure sustainability continuously increase. Therefore, accommodation facilities have to operate sustainably and there are several green certifications, awarded to hotels, that follow environmental friendly practices. Scope of this research is to identify the importance for selection, according to the willingness to pay, for sustainability certifications and environmental friendly practices in hotels, for people, that visit and use them and in relation to their “ecological” opinions, attitudes and practices according to answers for the New Ecological Paradigm (NEP) scale. In order to collect the opinions, structured questionnaires are used. The sample consists of permanent residents in Cyprus over 18 years old, that are fluent in Greek language and non-random convenient sampling method is implemented. To investigate if there is a relationship between environmental awareness of Cypriots, willingness to pay and different demographics such as age, sex, wage, place of residence, highest level of education, number of children, marital status, statistical correlation methods are implemented. The results show that Cypriots have a medium to high environmental awareness with a 3.47/5 NEP score and an approximate 84% of the sample, are willing to pay more for their stay in a green hotel.\n