Estratégias de conservação ambiental: uma avaliação do retorno econômico do comprometimento com a conservação ambiental para o setor hoteleiro da cidade de João Pessoa - PB por meio da certificação ambiental

Abstract

The asymmetric information are quite common in several markets and cause an important market faiture, the adverse selection. In the market for hosting services, the adverse selection arises from the inability of the guest to distinguish the hostels that adopt sustainable practices from others due to the absence of complete information regarding the environmental actions developed by companies with this differential. Thus, to ensure their survival in the market and the differenciation price of the service, these hotels should signal to consumers that difference. In this sense, the environmental certification is recognizes as a flag hoist efficient environmental quality of products and services. The objective of the study is to estimate, from the Contingent Valuation Method, how much consumers are willing to pay more for hosting services of establishments that take actions and strategies for environmental conservation, which are certified through a hypothetical seal. To this end, the methodology proposed by Hanemann (1984) to estimate the willingness to pay (WTP) from the logit model. The data were collected from the application of structured questionnaires. The results showed that 54% of the respondents started that they were willing to pay more for hosting in a certified hotel. Two variables were able to explain statistically the probability of acceptance for payment of WTP: the bid offered of the WTP, inversely, and personal income, positively. The average WTP estimated from the procedure of Krinsky-Robb (1986) was R$ 43,17; what made it possible to estimate in a range of R$ 10,054,324.01 – R$ 30,162,972.04 additional annual revenue of the certified hotels. In view of the aforementioned, it is concluded that the interviewed guests recognize the need to adopt sustainable practices of the hotel segment, including the environmental variable in determining their demand and are willing to pay more for hosting in a certified hotel and believe in the potencial of stimulating the environmental seal to environmental awareness in the sector in question.