Determinants of environmental management in the red sea hotels: Personal and organizational values and contextual variables

What motivates firms to adopt environmental management practices is one of the most significant aspects in the contemporary academic debate in which the review of the existing literature yields, with an obvious contextual bias toward developed world, contested theories and inconclusive findings. Providing a unique model that brings together the individual and organizational levels of analysis on firms' adoption of environmental management practices, this study aims to provide a new insight from the context of developing world. Data from 158 Red Sea hotels reveal two identifiable dimensions of environmental management-planning and organization, and operations-that can be explained as originating from different values. Whereas organizational altruism is a powerful predictor of both dimensions, managers' personal values and organizational competitive orientation are only relevant to environmental operations. The evidence also indicates that contextual variables such as chain affiliation, hotel star rating, and size are important to explain hotels' environmental management behaviors. © 2012 ICHRIE

Energy Efficiency Initiatives at Upscale and Luxury U.S. Lodging Properties: Utilization, Awareness, and Concerns

Energy costs in the lodging industry have been a focus for at least forty years, but the development of energy management programs and the employment of energy management systems have been uneven, at best. A 2011 study of ninety-nine managers of upscale and luxury hotels found that the operators were reticent to implement energy management programs that were excessively costly or might impair guest comfort. Thus, in-room sensors were suspect, and a substantial group of respondents were hesitant to install an electrical demand controller (or load shedder) for fear of interfering with guest satisfaction. These hotels also tended to use a short-term analysis that addressed raw cost and payback periods when considering an investment in energy saving equipment. A simple payback period of three years or less was favored over longer payback periods, even when a calculation of overall return on investment would have been favorable over the long term

Hong Kong hotels\u27 sewage: environmental cost and saving technique

With the continuing strong growth in international arrivals to Hong Kong, more hotels are planning to open in the coming years. The sewage problem stemming from local hotels is expected to be worsened. The current study covers the years 1998 to 2005, plus a projection for the years 2006 to 2009. A survey of water use and conservation in 28 local hotels has been conducted. All established norms and ratios related to water consumption in this study are on a per room basis. The environmental impact of sewage discharged is converted into monetary terms on the basis of how much the hotel industry would need to spend in order to avoid the impacts. It is found that the average volume of water consumed per occupied room decreased from 1.145m3 in 1994-1996 to 0.904m3 in 2001-2002. In 2005, the environmental costs value was more than HK$187 million and exceeded HK$364 million in 2008. It is also found that flow regulator and submeter are the two most commonly used water-saving devices in local hotels. Some recommendations are made to save water, particularly in the laundry, kitchen, and guestroom