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- Title
Environment Protection and Profit: Impact of Environmental Management for Hotels Performance.
- Authors
XIONG Wei; FENG Shibo
- Abstract
The impact of environmental practices on hotel performance is gaining more and more attentions from all over the world. Different methods have been employed to study the relationship between environmental practices and hotel performance, but the existing literature yields no conclusive results. Scholars represented by 'the Porter Hypothesis' insist that the costs incurred by the environmental improvements may be offset by higher savings in others. Moreover, environmental management may also permit product differentiation. For example, a hotel which does a better job in reducing pollution and environment protection may probably increase the demand from environmentally sensitive consumers. Therefore, environmental practices can become a new competitive power. However, other scholars hold a negative view. They believe environmental practices will incur significant costs, thus reducing its profit and the capacity to compete. Although cost savings can easily be gained from environmental practices, the cost may exceed the savings to be derived from these practices. To test and verify these two points in the real world setting, this paper aims to examine the link between environmental practices and hotel performance in luxury hotels in Guangzhou. A factor analysis, a correlate and a regression analysis were run via SPSS. The analysis outcome showed that the measurement scale of hotel environment practices can be divided into two different aspects which are basic environment management behaviors with 13 measureable variables and advanced environment management behaviors with 8 measureable variables. Meanwhile, hotel performance can be measured through 8 soft indicators. In addition, according to factor analysis and reliability analysis, hotel environment practices consist of 3 extracted common factors (energy such as water and electricity control, environmental protection strategy and energy saving and resources recycling) representing 13 indicators while hotel performance contains 2 extracted common factors (direct hotel performance indicators and indirect hotel performance indicators) with expressions of 9 indicators. At last, the findings of correlate and regression analysis revealed that environmental practices have significant and positive influences on hotel performance in Guangzhou luxury hotel settings. In other words, the more hotels are devoted to environmental practices, the stronger positive impacts they will have on hotel performance. Relative regression equations were also provided. In detail, Y1 (direct hotel performance indicators) = 0.457*H2 (energy such as water and electricity control) + 0.265*H3 (environmental protection strategy) + 0.221*H1 (energy saving and resources recycling); Y2 (indirect hotel performance indicators) = 0.326*H1 (energy saving and resources recycling) +0.240*H (environmental protection strategy) + 0.105*H2 (energy such as water and electricity control). Consequently, energy such as water and electricity control acts a key role in hotel direct performance, whereas it has a much less influences on hotel indirect performance. In reality, effective energy controlling is the most fundamental, immediate and workable means to execute cost saving which might also negatively affect guests' in-house experience and bring inconveniences. After discussing the findings, recommendations to hotel management are provided to help take advantage of environmental practices to achieve better hotel performance. Theoretical and managerial implications are further outlined. Limitations and future research suggestions are also discussed in this paper.
- Subjects
HOTELS &; the environment; BUILDINGS &; the environment; ENVIRONMENTAL protection; LUXURY hotels; HOTELS
- Publication
Tourism Tribune / Lvyou Xuekan, 2014, Vol 29, Issue 9, p83
- ISSN
1002-5006
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.3969/j.issn.1002-5006.2014.09.008