Question

Question: Hotels’ use of ecolabels.Refer to the Journal of Vacation Marketing(January 2016) study of travelers’ familiaritywith ecolabels used by hotels, Exercise 2.42 (p. 94). Recallthat a sample of 392 adult travelers were shown a list of6 different ecolabels, and asked, “How familiar are youwith this ecolabel, on a scale of 1 (not familiar at all) to5 (very familiar).” The mean and standard deviation ofthe responses for each ecolabel are provided in the table.Which of the ecolabels had the most variation in numericalresponses? Explain.

Ecolabel	Mean	Std. Dev.
Energy Star	4.44	0.82
TripAdvisor	3.57	1.38
Green Leaders Audubon	2.41	1.44
International U.S Green	2.28	1.39
Building Council Green Business	2.25	1.39
Green Key	2.01	1.30

Short answer

Green Leaders Audubon has the most variation in numerical responses.

Step-by-step solution

Meaning of Standard Deviation

Standard deviation helps us understand the variation in the data set or how far the data is spread from the mean.When the standard deviation is high, the data is spread out far from the mean. When it is low, the data is very close to the mean.

Identifying the ecolabel with the most variation

As the standard deviation value is the highest for Green Leaders Audubon, we can infer that it has the most variation in numerical response. The responses are spread out far from the mean and are highly varied.