Green indoor and outdoor environment as nature-based solution and its role in increasing customer/employee mental health, well-being, and loyalty

Abstract

The present study was an empirical endeavor to explore the effect of nature-based solutions (NBS) on the customer and employee loyalty generation process by considering the role of mental health and well-being in the hotel industry. A quantitative approach was employed. A survey methodology with a convenience sampling technique was used to collect the data. A total of 303 responses and 301 responses for customer and employee groups, respectively, were used for data analysis. Our results of the structural analysis indicated that green indoor and outdoor environment as NBS helps customers and employees improve mental health perception, emotional well-being, and loyalty. In addition, the prominent role of emotional well-being in building customer loyalty and of mental health perception in building employee loyalty was uncovered. The developed conceptual frameworks for customers and employees contained a satisfactory ability in predicting loyalty. Mental health perception and emotional well-being were mediators. Moreover, the relationship strength among study variables differed between customer and employee groups. Overall, our findings significantly increased our understanding of NBS and its critical role in the hotel industry.