Question

Hotels’ use of ecolabels.Ecolabels such as Energy Star, Green Key, and Audubon Internationalare used by hotels to advertise their energy-saving and conservation policies. The Journal of Vacation Marketing(January 2016) published a study to investigate how familiar travelers are with these ecolabels and whether travelers believe they are credible. A sample of 392 adult travelers were administered a questionnaire. One question showed a list of 6 different eco-labels, and asked, “How familiar are you with this ecolabel, on a scale of 1 (not familiar at all) to 5 (very familiar).” Summarized results for the numerical responses are given in the table.

a.Give a practical interpretation of the mean response for Energy Star.

b.Give a practical interpretation of the median response for Energy Star.

c.Give a practical interpretation of the response mode for Energy Star.

d.Based on these summary statistics, which ecolabel appears to be most familiar to travelers?

Ecolabel	Mean	Median	Mode
Energy Star	4.44	5	5
TripAdvisor	3.57	4	4
Green Leaders Audubon	2.41	2	1
International U.S Green	2.28	2	1
Building Council Green Business	2.25	2	1
Green Key	2.01	1	1

Short answer

a) On average, people have voted that they are very familiar with Energy Star

b) Half the travelers have voted 5 or less than 5, and half have voted 5(very familiar) for Energy Star

c) The most common response for Energy Star is 5, i.e., very familiar

d) Energy Star

Step-by-step solution

Interpreting the mean response for Energy Star

Mean response is the average of the responses recorded for 392 adult travelers. As the mean for Energy Star is 4.44, it can be interpreted that most of the 392 travelers have voted that they are familiar with Energy Star.

Explaining the median response for Energy Star

The Median response is the response that lies in the middle of the data set.As the median response for Energy Star is 5, we can say that 192 travelers have voted 5 or less than 5, and the rest 192 have voted 5 (because the scale ends at 5).

Analyzing the mode for Energy Star

Mode is the value in the data set which is repeated maximum times. Here the mode is 5; hence, the maximum numbers of travelers are very familiar with Energy Star as they have chosen 5 as their rating.

Finding the most familiar Eco label

The most familiar Eco label is Energy Star because many travelers have chosen a very familiar rating for Energy Star. We know this because the mode value is 5 and 5 represents very familiar. The mode value for all other ecolabels is either 4 or 1 which is less familiar.