Willingness to Pay for New Technologies and Environmental Technologies in Hotels: A Multinomial Logit Approach

Abstract

The tourism industry is very important for the economic growth in some countries and the hotel industry is the backbone of it. The advent of new technologies improves the stay experience of tourists in hotels and the environmental technologies contribute to the reduction of the environmental footprint of the tourist stay. Willingness to pay informs about the consumer surplus and therefore hoteliers, as producers can charge more informed prices for profit maximization. Evidence of high willingness to pay entails that the investment project required to finance the purchase of those technologies will pay back hoteliers if they decide to file for a loan and whether such finance projects pass the cost–benefit analysis test. The study calculates the WTP for each of the five new technologies and three environmental technologies and concludes that the higher prior experience with technologies and higher frequency of overnight spent in hotels increase WTP for all technologies. So does the young age of the consumer, income, and female consumership. These findings can also guide hoteliers to communicate the existence of such technologies in their hotels for marketing purposes and contribute to the formation of customer typologies, based on their demographics of customers.