Sustainability for the Hospitality Industry

This article discusses the importance of sustainability in the hospitality industry and its impact on the environment, economy, and society. It explores green practices, social responsibility, and economic factors in the industry.

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SUSTAINABILITY FOR THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY

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In the world, hospitality industry is becoming one of the most demandable industries that
offering various kind of services to a large population. Hospitality is a service based industry
and continuously concern the management about the service quality level so as to offer
greater satisfaction to the consumers. In relation to the hotel development and operations,
hoteliers have turned their focus to the importance of sustainability including the
environmental, social and economic impact. With regards to this, sustainability is one of the
most significant issues facing various sectors over the globe (Millar and Park, 2013).
From environment perspective, the hospitality sector is impacted by energy and water
consumption, usage of consumable and durable goods as well as solid and hazardous waste
creation. The energy is consumed by Hotel for its HVAC processes, light, fuel and further
power requirements. Moreover, waste is caused by disposal of papers, bulbs, furniture,
appliances and many more. Some of the myths are there that green operations are more
expensive and people and business are no more interested in sustainability. Though recent
advancement in technology related to renewable sources of energy has improved the
economies of using these kinds of different energies at the specific stage.
Firms in hospitality industry are required to deploy green practices which include
commitment to environmental practices in relation with formulation of environmental
committees, observing environmental performance, and share visibility of environmental
practices to public, stakeholders and guests (Jones, Hillier and Comfort, 2016). They may
also adopt energy efficiency and conversation, using energy efficient equipment’s,
applications of alternate energy sources, building and constructing necessary patterns. With
development of various provision related to storing and use of toxic products, they may
manage hazardous and toxic substances in respect with creating environment purchasing
policy.
Considering social perspectives, there has been seen many remarkable shifts in recent time as
stated by CSR programmes and with development of new projects related to green buildings.
Many hoteliers now being realized that they can offer an enhanced guest experience with
amalgamation of natural elements inspired by various factors such as “green thought” (Boley
and Uysal, 2013). Considering social indicators, the approach of sustainable development
was also and it is envisioned as stimulating to management of all resources while maintaining
cultural integrity and various other social aspects. Most important hotel companies have
deploy to certain level of sustainability platform embedded in their brand description and

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shifted to benefit the younger generation with more communally active consumers. Forbes
stated that – modern generations “take pride in gaining which brands are not just speaking the
talk, but are walking the walk”. Hence, if a business adopt sustainable practices, it will help a
brand to enhance status and brand reputation, which will help the whole industry to earn
profitability in the long-term.
In addition, as per survey made by Shelton Group, 55% of the U.S. workforce would like to
work for a socially responsible organisation, even if they made less money (greenotels.com,
2018). This show the importance of socially sustainable practices in the hospitality industry.
From economic perspectives, the hospitality occupancy rate will increase with bringing of
higher levels of profits when the nation’s economy is good whereas the opposite is also
correct where the slowdown in the economy will decrease rack and occupancy rates.
Concessions to upsurge occupancy are presented which yield lower revenue and revenue
reduces (Barber, Deale and Goodman, 2011). Moreover, there is also an impact of
globalisation on the lodging industry as it impact to the domain where people do travelling
around the nation and within the nation. Hence, the financial success of the lodging assests is
not only based on economy of the country but also the economies of individual nations play a
significant role. However, they need to consider several significant globalisation trends to
compete. They need to understand the basic requirement related to various aspects of
operations, amenities, food services and training.
In hospitality industry, hotel accounts for a substantial volume of the total pollution and it is
required likely of employing more significant practices in the hotel industry and also
benchmarking of hotel environmental performance (Aragon-Correa, Martin-Tapia and de la
Torre-Ruiz, 2015). Building of green hotel from perspective of scarcity of resources on the
planet, raising consciousness of protection of environment and ecological conversation shall
be the solutions to these issues where the natural resources can be reprocessed, re-used and
energy can be preserved.
Hence, all these factors related to the sustainability in the hospitality sector explores
innovative ways to tackle the ever rising cost of energy and water in perspectives of
environmental, economic and social views.

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References
Aragon-Correa, J.A., Martin-Tapia, I. and de la Torre-Ruiz, J. (2015) Sustainability issues
and hospitality and tourism firms’ strategies: Analytical review and future
directions. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 27(3), pp.498-
522.
Barber, N., Deale, C. and Goodman, R. (2011) Environmental sustainability in the hospitality
management curriculum: Perspectives from three groups of stakeholders. Journal of
Hospitality & Tourism Education, 23(1), pp.6-17.
Boley, B.B. and Uysal, M. (2013) Competitive synergy through practicing triple bottom line
sustainability: Evidence from three hospitality case studies. Tourism and Hospitality
Research, 13(4), pp.226-238.
greenotels.com. (2018) August Issue 2018 [ONLINE] Available from:
http://www.greenotels.com/vhost/greenotels.com/Images/CEUploads/press/
GreenOtelsVol2ISSUE7August2018.pdf [Accessed 01/04/2019].
Jones, P., Hillier, D. and Comfort, D. (2016) Sustainability in the hospitality industry: Some
personal reflections on corporate challenges and research agendas. International Journal of
Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(1), pp.36-67.
Millar, M. and Park, S.Y. (2013) Sustainability in hospitality education: the industry's
perspective and implications for curriculum. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism
Education, 25(2), pp.80-88.