Research Proposal on Environmental Management in Hospitality

This research proposal investigates the hospitality industry's response to environmental management and its contribution to environmental damage. It reviews literature on environmental issues, the role of environmental management, and adverse effects from operational practices. Using a mixed-method approach, combining qualitative (interviews with hospitality managers) and quantitative methods (questionnaires/surveys for employees and customers, and case studies), the research aims to understand how the industry maintains environmental management and addresses environmental damages. The expected benefits include insights into managing effective environmental management systems, understanding the industry's negative environmental contributions, and addressing adverse damages through transformed operational practices. The proposal outlines the research questions, methodology, and expected findings, acknowledging the scope and limitations of the research. The literature review covers environmental issues worldwide, the role of environmental management, climate change impacts, and identifies gaps and opportunities for improvement.

Running head: RESEARCH PROPOSAL
RESEARCH PROPOSAL
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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Abstract
The purpose of the research paper is to understand the ways by which hospitality industry
respond to the effectiveness of environmental management and to identify the ways by which
hospitality industry contribute to the environmental damages. The main aspects covering the
literature of the research paper Environmental issues of the hospitality industry around the world,
role of environmental management in hospitality sector, adverse environmental effects through
operational practices in hospitality industry. The research will be conducted with the
incorporation of mixed method, a combination of quantitative and qualitative research for a
precise and effective outcome. The mixed method will cover broader reach for responses and
will align the analysed outcome with the research questions. The benefits of the reseat h will
include, knowledge about the ways of managing effective environmental management system,
understanding of the negative contribution of hospitality industry on environment, ways of
addressing adverse environmental damages by transforming the operational practices of
hospitality industry.
Keywords: Research method, environmental management, hospitality industry, mixed research
method

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Table of Contents
1.0. Introduction...............................................................................................................................5
P1- Background...........................................................................................................................5
P2- Literature...............................................................................................................................6
P3- Questions and methods.........................................................................................................6
2.0. Literature review.......................................................................................................................8
2.1. Environmental issues of the hospitality industry around the world.....................................8
2.2. Role of environmental management in hospitality sector....................................................9
3.0. Methodology & Design..........................................................................................................11
3.1. Research overview..............................................................................................................11
3.1.1. The current project.......................................................................................................11
3.1.2. Discussion of methodology.........................................................................................12
3.2. Qualitative method..............................................................................................................13
3.2.1. Overview......................................................................................................................13
3.2.2. Methodological statement of expectation....................................................................15
3.3. Quantitative method 1.........................................................................................................16
3.3.1. Overview......................................................................................................................16
3.3.2. Methodological statement of expectation....................................................................18

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3.4. Quantitative method 2.........................................................................................................19
3.4.1. Overview......................................................................................................................19
3.4.2. Methodological statement of expectation....................................................................20
3.5. Overall statement of expectation........................................................................................21
P1 – Details and connections of expected findings...............................................................21
P2 – Scope and limitations of expected findings...................................................................22

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1.0. Introduction
P1- Background
The research topic aims at depicting the implication of environmental management in the
hospitality sector. The purpose of the paper is to understand the implementation of
environmental management in the hospitality industry across the world. The research paper will
attempt at understanding the concerns and challenges related to the practices of hospitality
industry. It has been observed from the previous theoretical understanding on the issue of
environmental management practices of the hotels industry that there is positive correlation of
the Environment Management with the engagement of the hotels with the supportive state
regulations. One of the primary objectives of the hospitality industry has been the development
of sustainable projects. Managing the environmental programs of the organization operating
under hospitality industry by controlling the negative impact of organizational practices and
activities. For the purpose of executing the policies in regards with the environmental
management, organizations of hospitality industry, environment programs should be
systematically designed, comprehensive in nature and should be able to portray the
organizational resources, structure, planning for implementing, maintaining and developing
policies and procedure. It has been previously discussed that the hospitality industry has been
one of the largest contributors of the negative environmental impacts in terms of higher
consumption of the limited source of energy. There are issues like the food and metal waste that
has generated huge environmental specific to this industry. The research will help in establishing
an effective correlation of the concept of environmental management with the functionality and
practices of hospitality management.

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P2- Literature
The theoretical concept of Environment management and impact of hospitality industry
will demonstrate the understanding of the negative impacts of the practices adopted by
hospitality industry. The literature will develop the understanding of the significance of
environmental management in the business activities. The research will help in understanding the
role of environmental policies and framework in the hospitality industry. The research paper will
reflect the concepts of environmental management, hospitality industry practices and impact on
environment, environment standards of the hospitality sectors, environmental impacts of the
tourism or hospitality industry. The importance of environmental audit for assessing the
established policies and practices. The system of maintaining ecosystem stability and ecological
balance for eliminating the negative impact of business activities is known as the concept of
environmental management. Establishing business policies and standards in regards with
environment is covered in the responsibility of the organizations operating especially in the
hospitality industry due to inflow of tourists from all around the world. Destruction of
environmental resources and facilities. The construction of infrastructural facilities of the
hospitality industry can result in overutilization of natural resources. The requirement of the
resources like water, fuel for transportation can lead to the scarcity and pollution (Chan& Hsu,
2016). Hospitality industry is majorly associated with the transportation sector and the industry
of tourism. The tourism sector attracts travellers from around the world and hospitality sector
utilizes the application of transportation facilities, which can lead to waste formation and
pollution.

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P3- Questions and methods
There are inadequate researches and literature for responding to the issues in
environmental management system in hospitality industry. The existent research materials are
limited to the general understanding of the impact of hospitality industry but it does not present a
comprehensive data about the implication and maintenance of environmental management in
hospitality industry. The research materials are also limited in regards with the contribution of
hospitality industry on the damages of environment.
The research questions for understanding the interrelation between environmental management
and hospitality industry are mentioned below:
RQ1. What are the ways in which hospitality industry is maintaining environmental
management?
RQ2. What are the ways in which hospitality industry is contributing to the environmental
damages?
The issues that will be addressed in the research paper will be the role of hospitality
industry in the damages of environment and the ways of maintaining environmental management
by hospitality industry. The proposed research methodology is selected for understanding the
ways by which hospitality industry can maintain and address the environmental management
system as well as for understanding the role of environmental management on the creation of
damages of environmental elements. The research methodology selected are qualitative method
and quantitative method. The sources selected for qualitative research methodology for this
research paper is interview method. The interview method will be one-to-one and through
interviewing over call. For facilitating the quantitative method, sources like questionnaire/survey

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method and case study method. The interview method will be facilitated amongst managers of
the organisations in hospitality sector. The respondents for survey method can be employees and
customers/client of the organisations in hospitality sector.
2.0. Literature review
2.1. Environmental issues of the hospitality industry around the world
The relationship between the hospitality industry and the environmental concerns are one
of the one of the most significant aspects of the academic discussion due to the fact that there is a
growing concern over the exhaustion of the natural resources by the people in the hospitality
industry (Pereira-Moliner et al., 2015). The enormous amounts of energy use of consumers have
been impacting the sector both positively and negatively. The sectors namely, hotel, banking
and amusement have been subjected to number of negative impacts of the consumer practices.
According to the estimation, it has been that there is an enhanced growth of ecotourism, to the
percentage of 80 % (Molina-Azorín et al., 2015). This growth of eco-tourism has been the by-
product of the negative impact of the environmental factors. The hospitality industry has been
one of the fastest growing sectors of the world which is marked by new projects on a daily basis.
Negative adverse impact of such development projects is reflective of the environmental
damages (Ryan, 2015). The amount of waste generated by the hotels around the world has been
one of the most concerning issues of the hospitality industry, for example, it has been observed
that the total waste generated can be used for over 37 million suitcases to be filled (Pereira-
Moliner et al., 2015). In terms of the total amount of energy consumption, it has been observed
that the hotels in general are responsible for the huge energy waste, which is estimated to be
used by 9.6 million blow years and 64.5 million TVs could be used(Chan et al., 2015). The
need of developing a mechanism for the purpose of managing the environmental impact of the

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same is due to the fact that impact of the same has been devastating depending on their level of
activity. To cite some of the examples of the same, three main pillars are solid waste generation,
excessive water and energy consumption. This has led to the development of environmentally
conscious tourists who are more conscious of the impact the hospitality industry is making in
general. The hospitality industry is found to have created large impact on soil pollution, sound
pollution and most importantly the water pollution (Bruns-Smith et al., 2015). In order to ensure
the effective management of the environmental concerns, there are number of successful
environmental programmes for the purpose of systematically dealing with the issue of
environmental protection. The development of this new “culture”, needs to be communicated to
all levels of management in order to cater to the issues of be negative impact (Pereira-Moliner et
al., 2015).
2.2. Role of environmental management in hospitality sector
This has been argued that environmental programmes in the hospitality industry acts as a
boon for ensuring competitive edge along with the financial benefits. It is reflective of the fact
that each unit of this specific industry is prepared to meet the challenge of any future legislation
and external demands coming from the environmental concerns. Such programs are essential for
developing the infrastructure in order to reduce cost and negative impact of the water, energy
and solid food waste. Some of these policies includes standards for climate change, energy
reduction policies, recycling policies and optimum consumption of energy. The research papers
depicts the understanding of the hospitality industry regarding environmental management. The
hospitality industry seems to direct its focus on the significance of sustainability. Hotel
operational and developmental plans must include the standards of sustainability and
environmental management policies. The importance of understanding regarding hospitality

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sector is important due to the increasing level of negative environmental impact of hospitality
sector. The reason for causing negative impact for the hospitality sector includes the excessive
water consumption and non-recycled energy consumption. These papers reflected the energy
consumption by the purposes like lighting, power requirements, hotel operations and fuel
consumption. Water usage incudes purposes like operational activities, maintenance and cleaning
purposes. The negative impact is sourced through the waste disposal of batteries, equipment,
furniture and appliances of hospitality sector (Chan, Okumus& Chan, 2018).
2.3. Climate change
The issue of climate change is considered to be one of the most urgent concerns for
industries like these to make efficient management of the same. According to the estimation,
there is an increase of 0.7 degree Celsius due to the rising global warming and emerging sea
level. In addition to the primary issues of climate change, there are issues like the diminishing
space to dispose waste to the problem of unsuitable food production (Chan et al., 2015). Such
issues have been taken as the burden on the environment. On the global scale, such impact has
led to the development of the global legislation aimed at adherence to some legal obligation.
Some of the steps undertaken at this crucial point are: reduction of the energy consumption and
replacing them with the green energy, reduction of the excessive packaging to lower the number
of plastics and solid waste used for such things (Pereira-Moliner et al., 2015). In addition to this,
there are number of other steps undertaken like the training in the environmental investment in
order to change the earlier environmentally destructive practices.
2.4. Gaps and opportunities

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Through the conduction of literature review for understanding the existence of correlation
of environmental management with the hospitality industry, the knowledge regarding the
negative impact of operational activities of hospitality industry is developed. The negative
impact of hospitality industry depicted the sources of destruction like excessive water usage,
over utilisation of energy and uncontrolled waste management methods. The opportunity for
learning the role of environmental management in hospitality industry was developed, which
depicted the importance of effective environmental management system for addressing the
negative impact from organisations operating in hospitality industry. The opportunity to learn
about the effects of one of the major issues caused by the hospitality sector was developed,
which is climatic changes. The gaps in the literature review are found in the areas like the ways
of understanding the role of hospitality industry in maintaining environmental management. The
literature sources reflected an inadequate understanding of the ways in managing the
environmental practices of the organisations in hospitality sector. Another gap identified through
the literature review demonstrates the lack of comprehensive information about the contribution
of hospitality industry in the causes of environmental damages.
3.0. Methodology & Design
3.1. Research overview
3.1.1. The current project
There are namely four types of research designs like correlational, descriptive, and
experimental and the quasi-experimental (Bernard, 2017). In case of the descriptive research
design, the aim of the study becomes to describe the current status of the chosen phenomenon
while for the correlational research design, it is the process of exploring the relationship between

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the variable (Brannen, 2017). For the experimental and quasi-experimental design of the
research, it is the process of experimentation of the causal relationship of the variables (Bryman,
2016). However this is one side of the research study since it deals with the quantitative
research. For the purpose of the qualitative research method, there are namely phenomenology,
ethnography, grounded theory and the case study based approach.
For this research study, it will be based on the qualitative method of data analysis. The
research design method used for the research will be analytical method. The rationale behind the
choice of the grounded theory is based on the analysis of the data and formulation of the theory
grounded in the actual data. The research study will be linked with the existent literature
regarding the impact of hospitality sector on environmental damages. The research will be
formulated on the basis of the present literature regarding the topic, the literature will present the
basis of designing the survey and interview question, according to the gap between the existent
and desired literature. This study will be collect and gather the relevant data from the primary
and secondary sources in order to formulate the theory based on the analysis of the factual
data.
3.1.2. Discussion of methodology
The proposed methodology for the purpose of the study is chosen to be the mixed
method. Under the qualitative and quantitative banner, this research will be undertaking the
exclusivity of both the researches. (Bernar, 2017). The qualitative research method for this
research topic is interview method. Interview methods will include the collection of in-depth
information about the environmental management practices of the organisation (Creswell&
Clark, 2017). Structured and unstructured interview method will collect the opinions and policies
of the organisations from the managers in the hospitality sector. The interview method will