Importance of Hotels in the Global Tourism Industry

Tourism is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.  The number of tourists is increasing each year with a resultant demand for hotel accommodation. The more the number of tourists, the greater the demands on the hotel industry to maintain specific sustainable standards to protect the environment from damage. Sustainable tourism can be defined as tourism that makes the lowest possible impact on the environment. Sustainable tourism aims for a positive experience for the tourist, the host country, and other businesses associated with the tourist industry. Sustainable tourism practices are now becoming an integral part of the tourist trade because it leads to better ecotourism. Environmental sustainability is a major principle for tourism that must be achieved at all costs.

Global Tourism Industry

The continuously escalating environmental load by hotel buildings, coupled with the increasing variety of services provided by hotels requires more effective measures which will reduce the ecological footprints of hotels. Hotels are responsible for producing the greatest environmental pollution in the tourism sector.  Since there are a large number of tourists living in the hotels at all times, they require clean bed linen, clean clothes, clean rooms, etc. Washing the linen daily requires copious amounts of water, the use of electricity for the machines, and of course electric irons or steam presses for ironing the clothes.

To perform all these functions the hotel requires employees, who also use these amenities and generate additional waste. All devices and machinery operate on electrical power and hotels generally have the most machinery and devices for quick services and also to reduce dependency on manpower.

All these devices require thousands of watts of electrical power every month which adds significantly to pollution and high consumption of electric power. Other factors are the high consumption of food which includes fruit, vegetables, meat, poultry and fish, and the waste generated in the preparation and

Hotels for their part can save a lot of energy and also prevent greenhouse emissions by switching off unnecessary lights and appliances in vacant rooms and offices. Hotel management must measure their sustainability accomplishments and make daily efforts to improve them.

Most large hotel chains like the Hilton have sustainability programs that are required to be implemented in all hotels flying the Hilton flag. Hotels must adopt reliable tools and best practices to protect the environment from damage that can be caused by their operations. Besides food and natural waste, hotels use chemicals for cleaning the interior and the exterior of the hotels.