Behavioral Economic Interventions to Reduce Plate Waste among Hotel Buffet Consumers: A Case Study of Khao Kho District, Phetchabun Province

Abstract

This article aimed to study 1) the effectiveness of three behavioral interventions-information default, gain framing, and loss framing-compared with standard service on the amount of plate waste among hotel buffet consumers, and 2) the personal factors affecting plate waste. This research employed a quasi-experimental design conducted as a field experiment. The sample consisted of 850 consumers at a hotel breakfast buffet who were selected through convenience sampling. The instruments for data collection were a data recording form and a digital weighing scale. Data were analyzed using an Independent Samples t-test and Multiple Linear Regression. The results showed that 1) all three interventions significantly reduced plate waste at the 0.01 level compared with the standard service. The most effective measure was loss framing, which reduced plate waste by an average of 37.49 grams per person, followed by gain framing (34.02 grams per person) and information default (19.50 grams per person), respectively; and 2) regarding personal factors, males tended to leave less food than females, children left more food than adults, and customers with group bookings left more food than those with non-group bookings. Furthermore, the number of customers per table was the only variable that yielded different effects depending on the intervention: an increase in the number of customers per table led to a decrease in plate waste under the information default and loss framing interventions, whereas an increase in this number resulted in an increase in plate waste under the gain framing intervention.