Should hospitality and tourism business combine eco-culinary tourism with creative tourism to respond to travel trends?

8

Cesar Ritz Colleges

BA in Hospitality Business Management

Can the Hotel Industry help to ensure Sustainability?

Submitted on 17/01/2019

By:

Ruyi Sun

742847

Word Count:

1040

Table of Contents

Introduction 3

An overview of sustainable tourism 3-4

Negative Impacts of the hotel industry 4-5

Green hotels boost sustainable tourism 5-6

Conclusion 6

References 7

Can the Hotel Industry Help to Ensure Sustainable Tourism

Introduction

Tourism industry can be regarded as one of the fastest growing industries in the world. With the concept of sustainability promoted, people begin to wonder whether the sustainable concept can be applied to the tourism industry (Florek,2012).

In the tourism industry, the hotels work as an important sector as they provide the accommodation location for the tourists. Considering the close relationship between the hotel industry and the tourism development, the object of this paper is to explore whether the hotel industry can help to ensure sustainable tourism.

The paper will present the meaning of sustainable tourism, the impacts exerted by the hotel industry on sustainable tourism to show that hotel industry can help to ensure sustainable tourism.

An overview of sustainable tourism

The application of the sustainability in the tourism industry is mainly attributed two major factors. For one thing, tourism has become the rising industry in the world; for another, the natural resources utilized in the industry mainly include the most beautiful natural, cultural and historical places in the world. Moreover, the development of the mass tourism usually does harm to natural habitat. For example, rivers and soil are heavily polluted during the process of developing the tourism industry.

In response to all these factors related to the tourism industry, the concept of sustainable tourism has been proposed for the sake of striking balance between economic development and environmental preservation. It is also believed that sustainable tourism will be the future form for the tourism industry in the 21st century (Kostic and Jovanovic-Tocev,2014).Specifically, the United Nations has proposed that the tourism industry should bring about the benefits for the tourism industry and strengthen the cultural and environmental integrity of the host communities and natural heritages (Kostic and Jovanovic-Tocev,2014). Based on the definition, tourism operations should be planned, controlled and integrated with other economic, social and ecological activities within any community. Many aspects of the hotels industry should be collaborated for the sake of monitoring the effects exerted by the tourism industry.

Negative impacts of the hotel industry

As an indispensable part of the tourism industry, the way how the hotels operate its business can actually affect the sustainability of the tourism industry. When tourists travel from one place to another destination, they need to reside in the hotels so that they can relax themselves in the cultural diversity and natural beauty. When tourists enjoy themselves in the hotels, the hotels will become the major locations where the environment will be affected.

With the global tourism industry developing, the global tourist arrival numbers also continue to rise. For example, individual travelers, organizations all need to reside in the hotels. In this sense, the hotel owners and operators’ managerial decisions can affect the development of the hotels as well as the way how the consumers reside in the hotels(Bader,2005).Without proper monitoring, the hotel industry can lead to a series of environmental problems. For example, the overuse of water can result in water shortages.

Apart from the consumption of water, contamination of water can also become a serious problem related to the hotel industry. As the hotels consume a large amount of water, they are likely to produce a corresponding amount of waste water. When a large amount of contaminated water is released to the environment, the water bodies will be heavily polluted and the environment will be in danger (Prud’homme and Raymond,2013).

In addition to the water issues, other environmental problems will arise from the development of the hotel industry. For example, the construction of hotels and other relevant facilities can result in increased sewage pollution. “Sewage runoff causes serious damage to coral reefs because it contains lots of nutrients and it stimulates the growth of algae, hindering the corals from survival” (Sunlu,2003). In this sense, the hotel industry can do harm to the environment.

Green hotels boost sustainable tourism

Considering the potential negative impacts exerted by the hotel industry, the concept of green hotels have been promoted, which aims to strike balance between economic development and environmental preservation. This kind of balance has been transferred into the concept of sustainable development.

Theoretically, the adoption of sustainable development practices in the hospitality industry mainly refers to the limitation of the negative impacts on the natural and social environments and to increase the benefit to host populations (Prud’homme and Raymond,2013). In practice, the hotel sector can exert positive impacts on the environment by means of taking some measures to cut down energy consumption which can also contribute to the reduction of contamination and resource exhaustion. Among all the sectors of the tourism industry, the hotel sector consumes the largest amount of electricity. In this sense, if the hotel managers attempt to execute energy-saving campaigns and environmental management systems, they can help to save energy and promote the sustainability in the travel industry.

Moreover, the use of water in a hotel has also been a significant problem in the hotel industry. For example, water can be used in many fields such as “the food, the laundry, drinking, circulation for air taming hot water for guest bathrooms and flow space heating” (Fukey and Issac,2014).With all these energy saved, the hotel industry can greatly help the sustainability of the travel industry.

Moreover, an increasing number of hotels begin to adopt the sustainability concept on account of the “fluctuating economic levels and a strong focus on customer service and satisfaction”. (Fukey and Issac,2014) More and more hotels want to shoulder the social responsibility by means of integrating environmental practices in their operation. With this trend continues, more and more hotels will go green and they are sure to make great contributions to the sustainability of the travel industry.

Conclusion

This paper has analyzed the way how the hotels’ practice can affect the sustainability of the travel industry. What cannot be denied is that there are two major environmental problems caused by the practices of the hotels, including energy over-consumption, environmental pollution. However, all these problems can be well managed with the hotels becoming aware of the necessity of the environmental protection. To sum up, hotel industry can help sustainability in many ways. As more and more hotels go green, they are sure to make great contributions to the sustainability of the travel industry.

References:

Bader, E. (2005). Sustainable hotel business practices. Journal of Retail & Leisure Property, 5(1), pp.70-77.

Fukey, N. and Issac, S. (2014). ustainability and Hotel Industry: A Prospective Simulation Study. Connect among Green.

Kostic, M. and Jovanovic-Toncev, M. (2014). Importance of Sustainable Tourism.

Prud’homme, B. and Raymond, L. (2005). Sustainable development practices in the hospitality industry: an empirical study of their impact on customer satisfaction and intentions.

Sunlu, U. (2003). Environmental Impacts of Tourism. Local Resources and Global Trades: Environments and Agriculture in the Mediterranean region.