Sustainable Hospitality Management

Hospitality Management

Hospitality management is taken as the academic study of managerial leadership how to run restaurants, hotels and tourism business by the concerning people. There are a lot of international institutes which are offering Bachelor and master degrees in Hospitality and Tourism Management (HTM) which has a great significance in the modern age of global village where social interaction is the main factor to come close the people of different cultures and countries from distant places (S.M. Lélé, 1991: p 12). There is a great scope of the study related with Hospitality Industry and the qualified students may entertain themselves with prospective job careers in the field of Hospitality Industry including Hotels, Restaurants, Casinos, Resorts and Tourism etc.

Sustainable Hospitality Management

Sustainable hospitality management is basically concerned with tourism practices, focusing some attention upon the managerial issues like social environment and economical revenues, accommodation etc (Brundtland, 1987). There is a direct interaction between the tourists and the hotel managerial authorities or travel agencies, developing an atmosphere for the stakeholders who want to invest more in the hospitality industry via economical as well as cultural immersion (Middle East Conference on Sustainable Hospitality Management, 2007). There should be clear-cut objectives of sustainability hospitality management to ensure the massive profitability by dealing all challenges and issues of management which are as follows:

1. To develop team spirits for good and evaluative workmanship of the existing models of concerning projects.
2. Evaluate the operational, marketing values and structural framework of sustainable hospitability business.
3. Identify measures of performance and develop strategic plans for sustainable hospitality management (United Nations Division for sustainable development 2005, p. 1).

It is responsibility of the sustainable hospitality management to train such personnel who may interact with the customers, having civility, productivity, politeness and responsiveness. There is a great significance of tourism, giving opportunity of about 25% of all employment in US. In the modern age, the trend and scope of traditional tourism has been growing gradually, having numerous activities like cultural tourism, sports, eco-tourism and adventure tourism. The young generation is much interested to avail such rewarding professions in management with the link of the hospitality industries and tourism. There are different institutes of international level which are offering a variety of courses, ranging from travel, hotels, restaurants and tourism.

When the students are encouraged to explore the business and management critically, broadening their basic knowledge and vision of discipline to solve all ethical and social issues with the implementation of all types of practices. There is a need of identifying the specific areas or issues to develop valuable projects. There should be implementation of wider-ranging ethical theories and principles for the development of macro as well as micro-business-environments The key features of ethical management may demonstrate the strategic and methodological approach to improve managerial decision-making ethically.

Operational Efficiency of Hospitable Organizations

The organizations practicing the hospitality principles world wide has to keep in mind their operational efficiency and effectiveness (Charter, 1992, p. 36). The hospitable organizations and institutes have experienced notable development in recent past years, taking advantage from rising affluence and the upsurge in cheap travel throughout the world. Increase in the wealth and resources, encourage people to go out and try different places for leisure and recreation through domestic and international trips. Tourism development in the countries like China and India is also now the destination of many tourists and an attraction for the investors. Corporate hospitality was boosted up by economical and faster tours at a time when corporate finances conditions were relatively good for sustained and robust global economic expansion. The popularity of conferences, meetings and business entertainment became a major source of industry’s profit (Croall, 1995 p. 23). With the advent of Globalization, the popularity of international conferences, meetings and seminars grew which helped the industry getting its exposure. However things have started to change. The international economic recession has hindered many tourism related projects in many countries and also the other internal and external conflicts of nations prevent tourists and investors to invest in their country.

Business expectations/revenue

• Privately held businesses (PHBs) in the following sector are less affirmative about revenue prospects (+75 per cent) as compared to 2007 (+78 per cent).
• Various Levels of optimism concern revenue in the sector resides at the same rate to the businesses.
• Levels of optimism with respect to profitability are much higher in the hospitality sector i.e. (+74 per cent) than (+41 per cent).

Employment

In 2007, the actual employment growth in the hospitality sector was much lower than anticipated. +49 per cent in employment was expected to increase, whereas +32 per cent was actually increased employment in this period.

Arguments about the application of sustainability principles to development and management in hospitality and tourism industry has been extensive and sometimes challenging in looking to achieve a balance between the short and longer term needs and demands of all stakeholders (Eagles, 1992, p.65). The main focus of this essay has been lying in the aspects of building a significant relation between environmental sustainability, hospitality and tourism and the natural and built environment with which it can exists. At the same time, there is equally important and essential the role of people who are involved in the delivery of experience and expertise in the hospitality and tourism industry.

Sustainability and operational, tactical and strategic measures

The assimilation of sustainability in the domain of hospitality organizations has recently made considerable progress. The most important federations of tour operators in many developed countries have introduced obligatory minimum standards to meet in order to contribute to sustainability. Now most tourism companies admit that they holds the corporate responsibility for the integration of it into their systems. 15 goals for member states have been defined by the UN-WTO which should be practiced as policy orientation to reach sustainability in tourism. However, not all of the stakeholders in the industry are ready to accept their part in the process of sustainability. The European representation of the hospitality sector (HOTREC) had come up with policies to avoid environmental limitations on their hotels and restaurants. Furthermore, if sustainability principles are applied in the tourism sector there is a possibility that tourism sector will focus on minimizing environmental impact rather than maximizing the contribution to sustainable development (Butler, 1991 p. 32). This orientation has been heavily criticized by NGO’s such as the International Ecotourism Society and the French GRET because it shows the environmental issues concerning only to the countries which are under developed and have a growing tourism industry.

Environmental Management and Sustainable Development

Sustainable Development is a source that aims to fulfill the requirements of human beings in the mean time conserving the environment in surrounding so that the needs that are fulfilled will not be restricted to the present short term gains but will be there in the future as well (Flores, 2009). The Brundtland Commission coined the term, now become the most popular definition which is “the kind of development which satisfies the requirement of the current scenario without affecting the capability of the future progeny to fulfill their necessities.” The concept of sustainable development provides a way through which undeveloped countries can undergo the process of industrialization without following the footsteps of the industrialized and the highly developed, carbon intensive countries of the world (International Hotels Environmental Initiative. 1995). Since the industrialized countries are accused of high emission of toxic elements injurious to the global environment, they are also looking for a way to minimize this hazard (Mabogunje, 2002, p. 11).

The central idea of sustainability philosophy has presented the concept of three dimensions. These three dimensions are shown as concentric circles (Ceballos-Lascuráin 1996, p 1). The IUCN Program, accepted in 2005, employed the interconnected representation to demonstrate the equilibrium among the sustainability dimensions. These three basic elements of sustainability are:

1. Economy
2. Society
3. Environment

Environmental Stability

Environmental Stability is defined as the process that assures that the processes involving the contact with the external environment are keeping the environment as natural as possible without causing much harm to it.

The non conducive situation arises for businesses once the total natural resources capital is used up quicker than the pace with which it can be regained (Faulkner, 2000, p.1).

The Environment Issues Regarding the Hospitality Industry

As an important division in tourism industry, hotel chain businesses must play a very important role as well since they impact the environment mentioned which are linked directly to the humanity. These are:

• Energy utilization
• Water consumption
• Waste generation
• Waste water administration
• Chemical usage and atmospheric contamination
• Purchasing/procurement of materials
• Local society initiatives.

Hence, an effort to tackle ecological accountability of hotel businesses might start as a result of concentrating on these vital regions. If more hotels are built, extra stress will imply on the limited water reserves (Scarlat, 2001, p. 21). Consumption of water in hotels is also a luxury and is for swimming in pools, for golf lovers and in room bathing services in spite of the usage as the basic need. As a result the domestic users may be deprived of their due share in water resource (Hameete, 2004, p. 23).

It conveys not merely an ecological concern, but also arise a moral debate. Like in Malaysia, is counted in the countries that have always enjoyed a plethora of clean water. Each Person of Malaysia had water availability of greater than 20,000 m³ / year. On the other hand, situation has altered significantly in past few years with no longer this luxury available to the common man.(Sharpley, 2000, p. 234). Greater overflow of water than before and plentiful natural disasters and the recession in economic sector in addition intimidate resource of water by means of macrobiotic pollution.

In an additional essential area of hotels’ ecological contact is the consumption of energy. Effective measures are desperately required because of high electrical energy utilization for warming and chilling, illumination, food preparation etc, direct to stress on confined reserves and enlarged overheads. Therefore, energy conservation measures have a more direct and strong impact on the total cost consumption of a hotel (Hassan, 2000, p.54).

Factors Affecting the Decision Making Process for Hospitable Organizations

Decision making process for the hospitable organizations becomes s very critical as they have to keep in mind the industry profitability status and the sustainability ideals. A traditional decision making process is influenced by four personality factors that comprise:

• Principles
• Personality
• Propensity for risk
• Prospective in case of disagreement

A hospitable organization will keep in mind that what factors are influencing its decisions. Whether they are more oriented towards their values and norms, their image in the industry, the risk level that they can afford or the actions they can take without any regression.

For this purpose many organizations use decision making models which provide assistance to them for opting for the correct option that will be beneficial to them and for their environment (Spangenberg,1999, p.234).

These models give certain dimensions which are to be kept in mind for making important choices:

• Rationality: Keeping in mind what are the pros and cons of this decision and how much profit or loss will we incur. The profitability after all is the demand of the corporate activities and every hospitable organization has to keep a balance between the social concerns and organizational prosperity.
• Facts: Referring to what the actual status says about our action. Shall we go for another swimming pool in our hotel despite having one already with a slight increase in no. of tourists?
• Values: What are the ethical constraints that we will be facing as a result of this?
• Means: What are our resources for this choice which we are about to make?
• Ends: What eventually will be the outcome of this decision? Will it be an effective decision for the extended period?

Combating Challenges in the New Era

Tourism’s, hotel businesses’ and other hospitable organizations’ negative atmospheric blows point to a dispute intended for the industry key players to respond positively to the evolving global environment. Industry of Tourism should propose goods and services which be able to function in domestic surroundings and civilizations, so as to the people consuming them may benefit from them. The new dimension of hospitable management has many aspects.

A conference that was held in Canada accomplished their mission that sustainable development promises to solve all the problems of modern tourism industry (UNEP, 1998).

Other social distresses and subjects were also taken in hand in the Manila Declaration, with emphasizes on greater domestic contribution in sightseeing growth and greater legislative precedence for communal contact in tourism planning (WWF, 2000). Though these conventions came to dissimilar conclusions, yet they seemed to view the sustainability as the key pillar to the tourism and hospitality development.

Sustainable Development-Critiques

What sustainable development actually means?

Now the world talks about the change in global environment, and the issues of biodiversity and resource exhaustion along with climatic transformation. The World Summit Conference conducted on the subject of Sustainable Development explained poverty as the main agenda. The concept of sustainability presented by Brundtland was smart but inapplicable. (Wuppertal Institute for Climate, 2001). The theory seems striking and flexible but it is inexact. Concept of sustainability development may prove helpful in bring together people but it possibly will not assist them to acquire their desired objectives and aims.

The setback in trade-off: The traditional concept of the sustainability development which is support by the model of three pillar, is defective because it demonstrates that that trade-offs can at all times be made between ecological, communal and financial proportions. That is one of the critical reasons why the surroundings persist to be dishonored and improvement programs are incapable to attain the wanted aims.

This essay shows that the tourism and the hotel hector (hospitality industry) are directly related to the environment. Since tourism and environment go hand in hand it had shown in the past that increase in tourism had adverse effects to the environment so the hazards of such situations must me avoided as much as possible. The concern for the environment and for the sounding human beings should be the concern for the hospitable corporations. The combination of ecological contemplation in the preparation of tourism activities demands collective and concrete measures from all hospitable organizations.

Government institutes and planners need to check the environmental issues on the regular basis. Hotels on the other hand, have the major responsibility in the environmental issues because the range of its impacts shows the need of urgency to resolve those impacts. As this responsibility increases along with other social issues like employment, social welfare and cultural conservation, hotels and other hospitality industries need to show some more ethical and moral responsibility towards the humanity.

Environmentalists, economic and political planners, governments, and businesses a person emphasizes on different techniques for better management of their organizations. Every step in setting up an organization is important and needs proper attention and guidelines in order to establish successful network or organization.

References

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