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EVERY DROP COUNTS: A WATER CONSERVATION EXPERIMENT WITH HOTEL GUESTS
Author(s) -
Joo Hailey Hayeon,
Lee Jungmin,
Park Sangkon
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
economic inquiry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.823
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1465-7295
pISSN - 0095-2583
DOI - 10.1111/ecin.12563
Subject(s) - nudge theory , incentive , psychological intervention , business , marketing , consumer behaviour , consumption (sociology) , water conservation , customer satisfaction , public economics , economics , environmental economics , microeconomics , water resources , psychology , ecology , social psychology , social science , psychiatry , sociology , biology
We implement a field experiment with hotel guests to measure the effects of nonprice interventions on water conservation and customer satisfaction. In hotels, guests have no direct pecuniary incentive to conserve water, as consumers do at home, where they pay their own water bills. Because hotels earn greater profits when they manage to convince guests to conserve, guests may be suspicious of a hotel's stated social goal of water conservation. By implementing behavioral interventions that address these challenges, we find that our nudges can induce guests to reduce their water consumption, even when no direct monetary incentive is provided. Using post‐stay customer surveys, we detected no adverse effects on customer satisfaction due to these nudges. ( JEL D12, I31, Q41, Q50)