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This research aims at identifying segments of luxury guests based on the benefits they seek when staying at 5-star hotels. The study also wants to investigate whether ethics and sustainability have a role in differentiating the segments.

An online panel survey allowed the collection of 508 responses with participants from Switzerland that spent at least one night in a 5-star hotel between 2022 and 2023. The survey asked about perceived benefits, sustainable tourist behavior, preferred hotel green practices, trip-related factors and socio-demographics. Hierarchical cluster analysis was employed to group participants on the benefits identified via exploratory factor analysis. The other variables were used for segment profiling.

Results show the existence of three customer segments for 5-star hotels: the ethical enthusiast, the unconcerned aesthete and the practical connoisseur. These differ in the importance they assign to ethical, social and symbolic benefits, as well as functional service benefits. The relevance of sustainability in the luxury hotel experience is stronger for the ethical enthusiast.

Luxury hotel managers should highlight sustainable practices on social media to attract ethical enthusiasts. In addition, marketing content customization should be used to appeal to the benefits and profile of each identified segment.

This is the first study that provides a benefit segmentation of luxury hotel guests, and it is also the first research that considers the role of sustainability and ethics in differentiating these customers.

Nowadays, international healthcare agendas are focused on patient centeredness. Policies are aimed at improving patient’s satisfaction by enhancing patient empowerment and value co-creation. However, a comprehensive model addressing the relationships between these constructs has not so far been developed. The purpose of this paper is to develop and test a model which explains the effects of patient empowerment and value co-creation on patients’ satisfaction with the quality of the services they experience.

The links between patient satisfaction, empowerment and value co-creation are theoretically outlined via an in-depth literature review. The resulting model is tested through a survey administered to 186 chronically ill patients. The results are analyzed through covariance-based structural equation modeling.

The results show that patient empowerment positively influences value co-creation which, in turn, is positively related to patient satisfaction. In addition, the analysis reveals that patient empowerment has no direct effects on satisfaction.

Although the cross-sectional design made it possible to clearly estimate the relationships among variables, it overlooked the longitudinal dimensions of co-creation processes.

The study provides practitioners with suggestions to design patient-centered healthcare services by leveraging on patient knowledge, participation, responsibility in care and involvement in the value-creation process.

Over the last decade, healthcare management literature has shifted its focus from healthcare organizations to patients. The number of contributions about patient satisfaction, empowerment and value co-creation exponentially increased. However, these dimensions are often studied separately. This work advances available knowledge by clarifying and testing the relationships between these three constructs.