An environmental performance assessment of the hotel industry using an ecological footprint

Environmental management research on the hotel industry has touched little upon the topic of environmental performance assessment. This study uses ecological footprint models to assess natural resource consumption in the hotel industry and the burden it puts on the environment. Findings of the study indicated that: (1) As the star rating goes up, hotels tend to consume greater amounts of resources, leave larger ecological footprints and have greater impacts on the environment; (2) Consumption categories in the order of the size of their ecological footprints are food, energy, construction land, textile and waste; (3) The types of biologically productive land used in accounting for the geological footprint in order of size are fossil fuel land, cropland, grazing land, water area, construction land, and forest land; (4) As the ratings of hotels go up, the contribution of the catering sector to the total ecological footprint shrinks while that of accommodation increases; (5) The higher the star rating of a hotel, the larger the average ecological footprint of per bed.