Understanding Digital Sustainability Discourse in Zero-Waste Hotels: Evidence from Social Media Analytics

Growing environmental pressures have increased interest in zero-waste practices within the hospitality industry, while digital platforms have become key spaces where such practices are interpreted and debated. However, limited research has examined how zero-waste hospitality is represented in digital public discourse. This study addresses this gap by analyzing 10,944 posts from X (Twitter) collected globally in English using an integrated approach combining text mining, sentiment analysis, and topic modeling implemented in Python (v3.14.5). The findings indicate that online discussions are predominantly neutral and positive, suggesting a normalization of zero-waste practices, while critical narratives point to concerns about greenwashing, pricing, and implementation consistency. Topic modeling further shows that zero-waste hotels are framed within broader themes, such as circular economy and carbon reduction, rather than solely operational practices. Building on these insights, the study proposes a three-layer conceptualization of digital sustainability discourse—informational, normative, and critical dimensions. By offering a conceptual perspective grounded in large-scale user-generated data, the study contributes to sustainable tourism literature and advances our understanding of how sustainability practices are socially constructed in digital contexts.