IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v11y2019i23p6556-d289118.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Investigating Sustainable Practices in Hotel Industry-from Employees’ Perspective: Evidence from a Mediterranean Island

Author

Listed:
  • Habib Alipour

    (Faculty of Tourism, Eastern Mediterranean University, 99450 Famagusta, Turkey)

  • Farzad Safaeimanesh

    (Faculty of Tourism, Eastern Mediterranean University, 99450 Famagusta, Turkey)

  • Arezoo Soosan

    (Faculty of Tourism, Eastern Mediterranean University, 99450 Famagusta, Turkey)

Abstract

Although several studies have researched the hotel employees’ environmental behavior, none has addressed the hotel employees’ perception of their respective hotels’ sustainability practices. This study aims to investigate the sustainable practices in four and five star hotels in a Mediterranean island by employing Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC) hotel criteria indicators, indicators of sustainable development for tourism destinations (WTO), and the European Union’s (EU) sustainability framework for the Mediterranean hotels− “Nearly Zero-Energy Hotels” (NEZEH), and global sustainable development goals (SDG) in the context of three dimensions: social, economic and environment. The sampled hotels claim that their operation system is conformed to sustainability principles with the aim of furthering their green agenda. In this study, we aim to investigate the validity and extent of this claim. About 290 (N = 290) employees in the specified hotels were surveyed. The measurement instruments were compiled based on sustainability indicators that encompassed addressing social, economic, and environmental dimensions. The research questions contextualized around four main themes: effective sustainability planning, maximizing social and economic benefits for the local community, enhancing cultural heritage, and reducing negative environmental impacts. For the statistical and data analysis, SEM (structural equation modeling) is used. Study revealed that employees are a legitimate and credible source of information about sustainability practices. It is also revealed that as going green is becoming a means toward branding, hotels are making efforts to implement a genuine sustainability practice. Study also indicated that the majority of employees validated the sustainability practices as genuine.

Suggested Citation

  • Habib Alipour & Farzad Safaeimanesh & Arezoo Soosan, 2019. "Investigating Sustainable Practices in Hotel Industry-from Employees’ Perspective: Evidence from a Mediterranean Island," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(23), pages 1-30, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:23:p:6556-:d:289118
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/23/6556/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/23/6556/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jose Ramon Saura & Ana Reyes-Menendez & Cesar Alvarez-Alonso, 2018. "Do Online Comments Affect Environmental Management? Identifying Factors Related to Environmental Management and Sustainability of Hotels," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-20, August.
    2. Claudia Cozzio & Ludovico Bullini Orlandi & Alessandro Zardini, 2018. "Food Sustainability as a Strategic Value Driver in the Hotel Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(10), pages 1-13, September.
    3. Ekta Sharma & Ruchi Tewari, 2018. "Engaging Employee Perception for Effective Corporate Social Responsibility: Role of Human Resource Professionals," Global Business Review, International Management Institute, vol. 19(1), pages 111-130, February.
    4. Verma, Vivek Kumar & Chandra, Bibhas & Kumar, Sumit, 2019. "Values and ascribed responsibility to predict consumers' attitude and concern towards green hotel visit intention," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 96(C), pages 206-216.
    5. Zou, Lili Wenli & Chan, Ricky Y.K., 2019. "Why and when do consumers perform green behaviors? An examination of regulatory focus and ethical ideology," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 94(C), pages 113-127.
    6. Scott, Daniel & Hall, C. Michael & Gössling, Stefan, 2019. "Global tourism vulnerability to climate change," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 49-61.
    7. Soolmaz L. Azarmi & Akeem Adeyemi Oladipo & Roozbeh Vaziri & Habib Alipour, 2018. "Comparative Modelling and Artificial Neural Network Inspired Prediction of Waste Generation Rates of Hospitality Industry: The Case of North Cyprus," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(9), pages 1-18, August.
    8. Hufei Ge & Silu Chen & Yujie Chen, 2018. "International Alliance of Green Hotels to Reach Sustainable Competitive Advantages," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-15, February.
    9. Herbert Marsh & John Balla, 1994. "Goodness of fit in confirmatory factor analysis: The effects of sample size and model parsimony," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 28(2), pages 185-217, May.
    10. Jonathan M. Harris & Neva R. Goodwin, "undated". "Reconciling Growth and Environment," GDAE Working Papers 03-03, GDAE, Tufts University.
    11. Kenneth A. Bollen, 1989. "A New Incremental Fit Index for General Structural Equation Models," Sociological Methods & Research, , vol. 17(3), pages 303-316, February.
    12. Nguyen, The Ninh & Lobo, Antonio & Greenland, Steven, 2016. "Pro-environmental purchase behaviour: The role of consumers' biospheric values," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 98-108.
    13. Kostakis, I. & Sardianou, E., 2012. "Which factors affect the willingness of tourists to pay for renewable energy?," Renewable Energy, Elsevier, vol. 38(1), pages 169-172.
    14. Janta, Hania & Christou, Anastasia, 2019. "Hosting as social practice: Gendered insights into contemporary tourism mobilities," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 167-176.
    15. Woo Gon Kim & Jun (Justin) Li & Jin Soo Han & Yunkyong Kim, 2017. "The influence of recent hotel amenities and green practices on guests’ price premium and revisit intention," Tourism Economics, , vol. 23(3), pages 577-593, May.
    16. Meleddu, Marta & Pulina, Manuela, 2016. "Evaluation of individuals’ intention to pay a premium price for ecotourism: An exploratory study," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 67-78.
    17. World Commission on Environment and Development,, 1987. "Our Common Future," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780192820808.
    18. Ravi Parameswaran & Attila Yaprak, 1987. "A Cross-National Comparison of Consumer Research Measures," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 18(1), pages 35-49, March.
    19. Sandra Cavaco & Patricia Crifo, 2014. "CSR and financial performance: complementarity between environmental, social and business behaviours," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 46(27), pages 3323-3338, September.
    20. Lee Cronbach, 1951. "Coefficient alpha and the internal structure of tests," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 16(3), pages 297-334, September.
    21. Delyse Springett & Timothy W. Luke, 2013. "Corporate Social Responsibility: An Uneasy Merger of Sustainability and Development," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 21(2), pages 83-91, March.
    22. Chindu Chandran & Prodyut Bhattacharya, 2019. "Hotel’s best practices as strategic drivers for environmental sustainability and green marketing," Journal of Global Scholars of Marketing Science, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(2), pages 218-233, April.
    23. Paul Opdam, 2018. "Exploring the Role of Science in Sustainable Landscape Management. An Introduction to the Special Issue," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-6, January.
    24. Fretes Cibils, Vicente & Ter-Minassian, Teresa & Scrofina, J. Sebastián & Ortega, Federico & Ríos, Germán & Rasteletti, Alejandro & Ramírez Verdugo, Arturo & Pineda, Emilio & Martínez-Vázquez, Jorge &, 2015. "Decentralizing Revenue in Latin America: Why and How," IDB Publications (Books), Inter-American Development Bank, number 6883, May.
    25. Prince, Solène & Ioannides, Dimitri, 2017. "Contextualizing the complexities of managing alternative tourism at the community-level: A case study of a nordic eco-village," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 348-356.
    26. James Anderson & David Gerbing, 1984. "The effect of sampling error on convergence, improper solutions, and goodness-of-fit indices for maximum likelihood confirmatory factor analysis," Psychometrika, Springer;The Psychometric Society, vol. 49(2), pages 155-173, June.
    27. Papadas, Karolos-Konstantinos & Avlonitis, George J. & Carrigan, Marylyn, 2017. "Green marketing orientation: Conceptualization, scale development and validation," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(C), pages 236-246.
    28. Papadas, Karolos-Konstantinos & Avlonitis, George J. & Carrigan, Marylyn & Piha, Lamprini, 2019. "The interplay of strategic and internal green marketing orientation on competitive advantage," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 104(C), pages 632-643.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Farzad Safaeimanesh & Hasan Kılıç & Habib Alipour & Shahrzad Safaeimanesh, 2021. "Self-Service Technologies (SSTs)—The Next Frontier in Service Excellence: Implications for Tourism Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(5), pages 1-21, March.
    2. Rose Ann A. Villarias & Kristin Iris G. Estores, 2021. "Resort Management Practices and Tourism Impacts of an Island Resort in Negros Occidental," Technium Social Sciences Journal, Technium Science, vol. 23(1), pages 823-845, September.
    3. repec:thr:techub:10023:y:2021:i:1:p:823-845 is not listed on IDEAS
    4. Jie Li & Peng Mao & Hui Liu & Jiawei Wei & Hongyang Li & Jingfeng Yuan, 2020. "Key Factors Influencing Low-Carbon Behaviors of Staff in Star-Rated Hotels—An Empirical Study of Eastern China," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-26, November.
    5. Ahmed Hassan Abdou & Thowayeb Hassan Hassan & Mohammed Moustafa El Dief, 2020. "A Description of Green Hotel Practices and Their Role in Achieving Sustainable Development," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(22), pages 1-20, November.
    6. Christian Bux & Alina Cerasela Aluculesei & Simona Moagăr-Poladian, 2022. "How to Monitor the Transition to Sustainable Food Services and Lodging Accommodation Activities: A Bibliometric Approach," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(15), pages 1-21, July.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Maria de Lurdes Calisto & Jorge Umbelino & Ana Gonçalves & Cláudia Viegas, 2021. "Environmental Sustainability Strategies for Smaller Companies in the Hotel Industry: Doing the Right Thing or Doing Things Right?," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(18), pages 1-19, September.
    2. Raghuveer Negi & Amit Kumar Gupta & Vidhu Gaur, 2023. "Effect of green marketing orientation dimensions on green innovation and organizational performance: A mediation‐moderation analysis," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(8), pages 5435-5458, December.
    3. Prakash, Gyan & Choudhary, Sangita & Kumar, Anil & Garza-Reyes, Jose Arturo & Khan, Syed Abdul Rehman & Panda, Tapan Kumar, 2019. "Do altruistic and egoistic values influence consumers’ attitudes and purchase intentions towards eco-friendly packaged products? An empirical investigation," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 163-169.
    4. Shannon Rogers & Semra Aytur & Kevin Gardner & Cynthia Carlson, 2012. "Measuring community sustainability: exploring the intersection of the built environment & social capital with a participatory case study," Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences, Springer;Association of Environmental Studies and Sciences, vol. 2(2), pages 143-153, June.
    5. Sharifah Rahama Amirul & Khairul Hanim Pazim & Sharifah Milda Amirul & Rasid Mail & Jakaria Dasan, 2022. "Developing and validating the qualitative labour productivity measurement in service industry," Quality & Quantity: International Journal of Methodology, Springer, vol. 56(4), pages 2853-2874, August.
    6. Muhammad Rehan Masoom & Md Moniruzzaman Sarker, 2017. "Rising materialism in the developing economy: Assessing materialistic value orientation in contemporary Bangladesh," Cogent Business & Management, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 1345049-134, January.
    7. María Luisa Pajuelo Moreno & Teresa Duarte-Atoche, 2019. "Relationship between Sustainable Disclosure and Performance—An Extension of Ullmann’s Model," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(16), pages 1-33, August.
    8. Nketiah, Emmanuel & Song, Huaming & Obuobi, Bright & Adu-Gyamfi, Gibbson & Adjei, Mavis & Cudjoe, Dan, 2022. "Citizens' willingness to pay for local anaerobic digestion energy: The influence of altruistic value and knowledge," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    9. Ki-Hoon Lee & Minwoo Lee & Nuwan Gunarathne, 2019. "Do green awards and certifications matter? Consumers’ perceptions, green behavioral intentions, and economic implications for the hotel industry: A Sri Lankan perspective," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(4), pages 593-612, June.
    10. Rambabu Lavuri & Umair Akram & Zubair Akram, 2023. "Exploring the sustainable consumption behavior in emerging countries: The role of pro‐environmental self‐identity, attitude, and environmental protection emotion," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 32(8), pages 5174-5186, December.
    11. Farzana Sharmin & Mohammad Tipu Sultan & Alina Badulescu & Dorin Paul Bac & Benqian Li, 2020. "Millennial Tourists’ Environmentally Sustainable Behavior Towards a Natural Protected Area: An Integrative Framework," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(20), pages 1-24, October.
    12. Lim, Xin-Jean & Cheah, Jun-Hwa & Ngo, Liem Viet & Chan, Kara & Ting, Hiram, 2023. "How do crazy rich Asians perceive sustainable luxury? Investigating the determinants of consumers’ willingness to pay a premium price," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    13. Youtang Zhang & Hagos Mesfin Berhe, 2022. "The Impact of Green Investment and Green Marketing on Business Performance: The Mediation Role of Corporate Social Responsibility in Ethiopia’s Chinese Textile Companies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(7), pages 1-24, March.
    14. Clea Beatriz Macagnan & Rosane Maria Seibert, 2021. "Sustainability Indicators: Information Asymmetry Mitigators between Cooperative Organizations and Their Primary Stakeholders," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(15), pages 1-16, July.
    15. Reyes, Pedro M. & Li, Suhong & Visich, John K., 2012. "Accessing antecedents and outcomes of RFID implementation in health care," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 137-150.
    16. repec:aud:audfin:v:21:y:2019:i:50:p:258 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Agnieszka Bojanowska & Monika Kulisz, 2020. "Polish Consumers’ Response to Social Media Eco-Marketing Techniques," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(21), pages 1-20, October.
    18. Julia Wojciechowska-Solis & Agata Kobyłka & Adam Gawryluk, 2021. "Social Responsibility of Economic Units and the Well-Being of Society in the Tourism Sector: Example of Accommodation Facility," Energies, MDPI, vol. 14(19), pages 1-22, October.
    19. Carlos Jurado-Rivas & Marcelino Sánchez-Rivero, 2019. "Willingness to Pay for More Sustainable Tourism Destinations in World Heritage Cities: The Case of Caceres, Spain," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(21), pages 1-21, October.
    20. Wallach, Karen Anne & Popovich, Deidre, 2023. "When Big Is Less than Small: Why dominant brands lack authenticity in their sustainability initiatives," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    21. Javier Muñoz de Prat & María Escriva-Beltran & Roberto Gómez-Calvet, 2020. "Joint Ventures and Sustainable Development. A Bibliometric Analysis," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(23), pages 1-24, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:11:y:2019:i:23:p:6556-:d:289118. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.