Environmental Sustainability and Green Revisit Intentions: The Mediating Effect of Green Satisfaction in Selected Hotels in the Ashanti Region of Ghana

Sustainable hospitality research has largely examined how environmentally friendly practices affect customer satisfaction, but evidence on their impact on actual revisit behavior is limited, especially in developing countries. Given the increasing emphasis on sustainability in Ghanaian hotels, it is essential to understand how a hotel’s environmentally sustainable practices in the Ghanaian context affect guest satisfaction and influence guest repurchase behavior. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior and the attitude–behavior gap, the study used a mixed-method design to address this gap by analyzing how guests’ green satisfaction mediates the effect of hotel environmental practices on their revisit intentions in the Ashanti Region of Ghana. Data were collected from 360 guests in six two- and three-star hotels using a multi-stage sampling technique through a structured open-ended questionnaire and follow-up interviews from 6 guests. The quantitative data were analyzed using SPSS version 25 and AMOS version 23, while qualitative responses (from interviews) were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings indicated that water-conservation, energy efficiency, and waste-management practices each had positive, significant effects on guests’ green satisfaction, with their p-value being < 0.001, <0.001, and 0.002. However, green satisfaction did not significantly mediate the relationship between any of these Practices and guests’ intentions to revisit. This suggests that while environmentally sustainable initiatives enhance satisfaction, they do not directly translate into repeat patronage. Qualitative findings further identified other influential factors, such as price, proximity, emotional attachment, and purpose of visit, as stronger determinants of repeat behavior. This suggests an attitude–behavior gap; thus, guests may appreciate visible sustainability initiatives but still base repurchase decisions on broader economic and contextual concerns. The study concludes that while Ghanaian guests value green initiatives, such practices alone may not drive repeat visits; hotel managers should integrate sustainability with service quality and affordability to enhance customer retention. This research contributes to the sustainability literature by providing empirical evidence from a developing-country context and by highlighting how the theoretical interplay of attitudes and behavior may differ outside Western settings.