Communicating default changes to hotel room cleaning without reducing guest satisfaction

Abstract

Hotels are increasingly moving away from daily room cleaning. Offering room cleaning only upon request has been proven to reduce emissions and save hotels money. However, effective communication is crucial to preserve guest satisfaction. There is a research gap on how to best communicate such default changes and whether different messaging approaches can either increase their efficacy or reduce their effectiveness (e.g., by causing reactance). In a survey experiment (N = 800), we tested different theory-derived messages to accompany changes to room cleaning procedures. Several messaging strategies in combination with a default change proved promising: they reduced intended room cleaning requests while preserving satisfaction ratings. In contrast, a default change alone (without a theory-driven message) was ineffective and reduced satisfaction. In a field experiment, we confirmed the effectiveness of one specific message (leveraging the level of control) in combination with a default change: room cleans were reduced from 99% to 45% whilst maintaining guest satisfaction. Theoretically, our findings point to the effectiveness of combining default changes with theory-derived messages. Practically, we put forward an intervention that hotels can immediately and easily adopt.