Green hotel experiences and transformative well-being

This study seeks to develop a ‘green experience-induced transformative well-being model’ to broaden the classical hedonic and eudaimonic well-being dimensions. Green hotel experiences, with unique tangible and intangible features regarding sustainable services, can be transformative for guests and embrace transformative well-being through the process. Through interpretive phenomenological analysis of data from 18 interviewees, the results indicate that first-time guests of green-certified hotels can experience transformative well-being, advancing and bridging between hedonic and eudaimonic well-being dimensions. The study findings highlighted that transformative well-being is described as the process of experiencing sequential and interconnected six core elements of novelty, surprise, curiosity, mindfulness, [new identity] practice, and identity consolidation. Consequently, hospitality managers can integrate sustainability practices into their operations to cultivate these elements and enhance their guests’ transformative well-being.