Sustainability and Luxury in Hospitality: Achieving Compatibility for a Better Future

While there is a growing trend among luxury hotels to adopt and communicate sustainability practices, scholars continually debate the luxury and sustainability compatibility. This research examines sustainability implementation and communication in European luxury hotels from different angles, investigating whether and how compatibility between luxury and sustainability is achievable. For this, a mixed-methods study is conducted including web-content analysis, interviews with decision makers and managers in hotels and Tripadvisor review exploration. Findings show compatibility obstacles and success factors. A link between luxury hotels’ sustainability communication and customers’ engagement on review portals demonstrates that sustainability and luxury are highly compatible for hotels.