Motivation, expectations and benefits of the introduction and maintenance of the voluntary environmental labels in the tourism sector: a study of italian companies.

In the recent years the number of tourism enterprises that achieve environmental certification, such as Ecolabel, ISO 14001 and EMAS has increased. The aim of this study is know the reasons that led to undertake the environmental certification process, the advantages recognized by companies and any limitations arising from the certification itself. In this paper are analysed the environmental sustainability behaviour of Italian tourism companies through different profiles of motivation for the implementation of sustainable measures and generic business variables. The analysis starts running a factor analysis to reveal the underlying factors in the data. Based on the multiple correspondence analysis, a non-hierarchical cluster analysis is performed to segment the sample into homogeneous groups. Finally, a Cumulative Proportional Odds Model was used to identifying the dependence of judgment about the environmental certification by previous experience and by the company's expectations with regard to potential benefits. The study clearly identifies two clusters of companies, where the most discriminating factors are the environmental labels, the future behaviour and the benefits received. The judgment on the environmental certification labels is statistically influenced by to having the corporate and institutional benefits, by the increasing customer loyalty and by encountering obstacles.