Green tourism ::behavioral segments of sustainable tourists and their attractivity as target segments

Considering the current environmental crisis, understanding and promoting environmentally sustainable consumer behaviors is of great importance. Even though academic scholars have discussed different sustainable behaviors. Thus, this research aims to comprehensively analyze latent definitions of sustainable hospitality experiences that tourists in Switzerland demand. We use semi-structured interviews and a representative survey with tourists who have stayed in Switzerland. First, our findings provide valuable information for Swiss hospitality actors, allowing them to adapt their offers and marketing strategies to fit customers’ sustainability requirements. Second, our method may serve as a blueprint to replicate this analysis for other geographies and categories. Given the numerous signals showing consumers’ increasing demand and willingness to pay for sustainable tourism, understanding what kind of sustainable hospitality offers consumers wish to buy and how these should be communicated pre- and post-purchase depending on the targeted segment is a prerequisite for businesses to maximize their potential benefits.