Sustainability In Hotel Industry

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In the world of hoteliers, tourism and leisure, money has always been the constant driver and measurement of success. However, within the last several years the tables have started to turn and investors as well as the corporate world has started to put more emphasis on sustainability. Sustainability is defined as “the quality of not being harmful to the environment or depleting natural resources, and thereby supporting long-term ecological balance” (Webster Dictotionary). Sustainability, especially in regards to natural resources has steadily risen on the awareness scales of many fortune 500 companies and beyond. From a financial standpoint it is wise to invest in sustainable measures for hotels. In this literature review focusing on sustainability, …show more content…

In The Environmental Green Globe Report, author Paulina Bohdanowicz states that “In recent years, hotel companies are increasingly being evaluated by the degree of their environmental and social commitment and achievements rather than only by their financial performance” (Bohdanowicz, …show more content…

However globally hotels make up over 300,000 facilities, thus one of the most important if not the most important division of the tourism industry as a whole. Hotels provide accommodation for over half of national and international tourists (WTO, 2004). Due to the turnover rate of hotels and the sheer consumption of natural resources ranging from energy, natural gas, and other resources they have a much larger ecological footprint that other buildings of similar size and stature. "According to Perrera et al. (2003), the entire American lodging industry (including hotels, dormitories and other accommodation facilities) was estimated to consume 55.6 TWh of energy/year in 2000, while the corresponding figure for European facilities was 39 TWh (CHOSE, 2001). There is no collective data for hotel water consumption on a global, or a European scale, but according to Davies and Cahill (2000) tourists in the American lodging industry consume approximately 174.88 million m3 of water annually.” The primary leader of this water waste is from sewage. The water waste doesn’t stop there either as this sewage must be properly treated thus causing further ecological damage as many treatment chemicals can be toxic. In a presentation given by Rezidor Hotel Group Inc. at Cesar Ritz Colleges on October 6th , the hotel reviled that the average room occupancy uses about 540

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