International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management

Sustainability in the global hotel industry

Peter Jones David Hillier Daphne Comfort
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Sustainability in
Sustainability in the global hotel the hotel
industry industry
Peter Jones
Business School, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK 5
David Hillier
Centre for Police Sciences, University of South Wales, Pontypridd, UK Received 2 October 2012
Revised 8 January 2013
Daphne Comfort 17 April 2013
Accepted 18 May 2013
Business School, University of Gloucestershire, Cheltenham, UK
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Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to provide an exploratory review of how the global hotel
industry publicly communicates its approach to sustainability.
Design/methodology/approach – The paper begins with an outline of the growing importance of
sustainability within the hospitality industry and a short discussion of the characteristics
of sustainability. The paper draws its empirical material from the most recent information on
sustainability posted on the world’s leading hotel chains’ corporate websites.
Findings – The findings reveal that while there is considerable variation in the information the
leading hotel chains provided publicly on their sustainability commitments and achievements, they
embrace a wide range of environmental, social and economic issues. More critically, the authors argue
that these commitments are driven more by the search for efficiency gains, that they are couched
within existing business models centred on continuing growth, and that as such the global hotel
industry is currently pursuing a “weak” rather than a “strong” model of sustainability.
Practical implications – The paper suggests that although the leading global hotel companies are
well placed to take a leading role in promoting sustainability, they may need to extend their
sustainability reporting and to introduce external assurance procedures.
Originality/value – The paper provides an accessible review of the sustainability agendas currently
being pursued within the global hotel industry and as such it will interest academics, students and
practitioners interested in both the hospitality industry and corporate sustainability strategies.
Keywords Hospitality, Sustainability, Global hotel industry
Paper type Research paper

Introduction
Since the early 1900s the concept of sustainability has attracted increasing attention in
political, media and investment circles. In Ernst & Young and the GreenBiz Group’s
recent review of trends in corporate sustainability strategy, for example, it was argued
that “over the past two decades corporate sustainability efforts have evolved into a
complex and disciplined business imperative focused on customer and stakeholder
requirements” (Ernst & Young and GreenBiz, 2012, p. 4). Many business leaders have
International Journal of
been developing sustainability plans and programmes as an increasingly important Contemporary Hospitality
element of their corporate strategies. A number of factors help to explain this trend. Management
Vol. 26 No. 1, 2014
These include the growth amount of legislation and regulation on environmental and pp. 5-17
social issues; concerns about increasing shortages of vital natural resources; increased q Emerald Group Publishing Limited
0959-6119
shareholder awareness of the importance of ethically sound corporate investments; and DOI 10.1108/IJCHM-10-2012-0180
 IJCHM prominent press and television coverage of the activities of anti-corporate and
26,1 anti-capitalist organisations and pressure groups. An ever growing number of large
companies now look to publicly emphasise and demonstrate their commitment to
sustainability and sustainable development to enhance their competitive advantage, to
build their brand and to differentiate themselves from competitors within the
marketplace.
6 At the same time a number of critics view corporate commitments to sustainability
and sustainable development as a cynical ploy, often described as “greenwash”,
designed to appeal to consumers, who are increasingly concerned about the
environmental and social impact of business activities, while effectively ignoring
fundamental environmental and social concerns. As such many corporate
commitments to sustainability might be described as “green consumerism” which
“has failed to induce significant inroads into the unsustainable nature of consumption
and production” (Hamilton, 2009, pp. 573-4). In a similar vein, Kahn argued that “green
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consumerism” is “an opportunity for corporations to turn the very crisis that they
generate through their accumulation of capital via the exploitation of nature into
myriad streams of emergent profit and investment revenue” (Kahn, 2010, p. 48).
While the size of the world’s hotel industry is not easy to quantify (Hotel Analyst,
2012) it has grown rapidly in during the last quarter of a century and it is now widely
recognised as a global industry (Papiryan, 2008). Goldstein and Primlani (2012) have
traced the origins of hotel sustainability back to the 1960s, suggesting that “the past
several decades have seen a growing awareness amongst hoteliers and investors
regarding the environmental and social impacts of hotel development and operations”
(Goldstein and Primlani, 2012, p. 3). However over a decade ago Pryce (2001) argued
that “the hotel industry could benefit from addressing their environmental and social
impacts in a more systematic way and thus make the first steps toward corporate
sustainability” (Pryce, 2001, p. 95). Some years later Chen et al. (2009), for example,
suggested that “for many hospitality managers the daily agenda still focuses on
priorities seen to be more important than sustainable business management including
cost control, profit maximisation and shareholder value”(Chen et al., 2009, p. 15).
However Chen et al. (2009) argue that in “the context of globalisation, emerging
sustainable development concerns and priorities increasingly cut across all areas of
management interest and responsibility” and that “owners, general managers and line
managers cannot ignore these developments” (Chen et al., 2009, p. 115). More recently
Prarie (2012) suggested that “the hotel industry is in the midst of a sustainability
awakening”.With this in mind, the aim of this paper is to offer a review of the how the
global hotel industry publicly communicates its approach to sustainability via a simple
exploration of the extent to which world’s top ten hotel brands report on their
sustainability commitments and achievements and to offer some reflections on these
commitments and achievements.

Sustainability and theoretical frameworks

The ideas underpinning sustainability are not new but the concept has attracted
increasing attention in recent years. According to Diesendorf (2000), for example,
sustainability is “the goal or endpoint of a process called sustainable development”
(p. 21). The definition of sustainable development in most common use is “development
that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future
 generations to meet their own needs” (World Commission on Environment and Sustainability in
Development, 1987, p. 43). In reality, however, there is little genuine consensus in the hotel
providing an operational definition. Firstly there is a family of definitions essentially
based in and around ecological principles and secondly there are definitions which look industry
to embrace social and economic development, as well as environmental goals, and
which look to embrace equity in meeting human needs. At the same time a distinction
is often made between “weak” and “strong’ sustainability, with the former being used 7
to describe sustainability initiatives and programmes developed within existing
economic and social systems while the latter is associated with much more radical
changes in both economy and society (Roper, 2012).
As interest in sustainability has gathered momentum so a number of attempts have
been made to conceptualise sustainability and three approaches merit attention.
Firstly, several authors (e.g. Barter, 2011; Zink, 2005; Garvare and Johansson, 2010),
have employed stakeholder theory to conceptualise sustainability. In simple terms,
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stakeholder theory is developed around the belief that companies should be sensitive to
the interests not just of their shareholders but also those of a wider variety of
stakeholders, including suppliers, customers and society at large, and that in so doing
they will ultimately be more successful. Wheeler et al. (2003, p. 16), for example,
suggested that “sustainability is a construct whose foundational ideas are consonant
with those of stakeholder theory” and that “stakeholder concepts are highly relevant
and useful to thinking about sustainability”. In developing a model of stakeholder
management for sustainability Garvare and Johansson (2010, p. 737) argued that
“contemporary organisations must satisfy a variety of stakeholders”, and Steurer et al.
(2005) explored the relationship between sustainability and stakeholder theory and
examined how “corporations are confronted with economic, social and environmental
stakeholder claims” (p. 264). Secondly Todorov and Marinova (2009) argued that a
simple model centred on the environmental, social and economic dimensions of
sustainability and presented in a simple Venn diagram as three overlapping circles,
provides an accessible picture of the concept. Thirdly, Amsler (2009) has looked to
develop a more critical theory which embraces the different and competing
perspectives outlined earlier. Within this paper the authors drew on all three
approaches to provide both a theoretical frame of reference and to underpin the
detailed process of data collection and collation for the paper as outlined below.

Method of enquiry
In order to obtain a preliminary overview of the extent to which the global hotel
industry is addressing the challenge of sustainability the top ten global hotel brands,
as identified by Heardable (2012) – namely Marriot, Best Western, Hyatt, Iberostar,
Hilton, Relais and Chateaux, Ramada (part of Wyndham Worldwide), Holiday Inn (part
of the Intercontinental Hotels Group, IHG), Ritz Charlton, and Jumeirah – were selected
for study. The selected chains might be seen to reflect contemporary approaches to
sustainability within the industry and to be keen to publicise their sustainability
initiatives to a wide audience.
Businesses employ a variety of methods to report on sustainability, including
“product labels, packaging, press/media relations, newsletters, issue related events,
reports, posters, flyers, leaflets, brochures, websites, advertisements, information
packs and word-of mouth” (European Commission, n.d.). A decade ago Bowen (2003)
 IJCHM reported that a growing number of large organisations were employing the internet to
26,1 report their sustainable development and sustainability commitments and
achievements. This led the authors to conduct a digital internet search using the
keywords “sustainability annual report”, and if that failed to produce any information,
then the word “sustainability”, on the website of each of the top ten hotel chains. The
information through this search provided the empirical information for this paper. This
8 information is already in the public domain and consequently the authors took the
considered view that they did not need to contact the hotel chains to obtain formal
permission prior to conducting the particular study.
All ten hotel chains presented the information on sustainability on their corporate
websites in a variety of ways, but the simple threefold classification of environment,
society and economy outlined earlier was employed to guide data collection. In
recognising that the hotel chains have important business relationships with
customers, employees, suppliers and local communities, the authors have adopted a
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loose stakeholder approach as a simple template for the data collection and analysis.
Holcomb et al. (2007) employed content analysis to interrogate websites, but in this
paper the authors chose to tease out the key themes and narratives by a close
interrogation of the sustainability reports and information using the general themes of
environment, society and economy. More specific issues were then identified using
these three themes. Thus, climate change and carbon emissions, water and energy
conservation, waste management and recycling initiatives, and environmentally
responsible sourcing, for example, were amongst the issues identified under the
environmental theme. More critically, in discussing the hotel chains’ approach to
sustainability within a wider economic and political context the authors have looked to
reflect current theoretical thinking emerging within the social sciences.
The authors recognise that their approach has its limitations. It is narrowly focused,
but the authors would argue that it is appropriate as the focus is on how the leading
hotel chains currently project their approach to sustainability. At the same time there
may be questions about whether the material posted on the internet realistically
reflects detailed corporate strategy on sustainability and whether or not such
statements are, in reality, little more than carefully constructed public relations
exercises. However, given the need to attempt to understand the role the global hotel
industry is playing in sustainability, the approach adopted in the current research
draws on information that is publicly available and readily accessible, and as such it is
not only fit for purpose but it also provides a platform from which future research
agendas might be constructed.

Findings
The navigation of the top ten hotel chain’s websites revealed market variations in the
information the leading hotel chains publicly provided on sustainability. Four of the
selected companies, namely Marriott, Ramada (Wyndham Worldwide), Holiday Inn
(IHG) and Jumeirah published formal sustainability reports, while the other six
companies provided varied but more limited information concerning their approach to
sustainability. A number of the hotel groups stress their corporate commitment to
sustainability. Marriott, for example, reports “investing in sustainable development
and innovative conservation initiatives [. . .] that will provide long term solutions to
critical social and environmental issues” (Marriott, 2012, p. 1) while Hilton defines its
 “sustainability mission” as being “to benefit this and future generations by actively Sustainability in
managing our business through the lens of sustainability” and stresses that the hotel
“sustainability is now a critical performance measure for our business”. In a similar
vein, Wyndham Worldwide reports its “commitment to sustainability, which by industry
definition means meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs” and the company outlines how it is
“delivering Triple Bottom Line benefits” by focusing on “people”, “profits” and the 9
“planet” (Wyndham Worldwide, 2011, p. 18). Iberostar emphasises its “concern for the
economic, human and social development of the communities where the company has a
presence” and its “firm commitment to the preservation of the environment and respect
for wildlife in all the destinations in which we operate” (Iberostar, 2012).
These corporate commitments are evidenced across a wide range of environmental,
social and economic agendas. The environmental issues addressed include climate
change and greenhouse gas emissions, water and energy conservation, waste
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management and recycling, environmentally responsible sourcing, the protection and

preservation of natural resources, minimising environmental impacts, and the creation
of green construction standards to guide new hotel construction. In outlining its
environmental sustainability strategy, Wyndham Worldwide, for example, itemises
the risks it perceives including “increased natural areas where we operate”, “rising
costs of fuel, energy and water”, and “increased regulatory legislation which may
inhibit growth and negatively impact on operational profitability”(Wyndham
Worldwide, 2011, p. 25). Hyatt reports having established specific targets to reduce
energy consumption by 25 per cent, water consumption by 20 per cent, greenhouse gas
emissions by 25 per cent and waste sent to landfill by 25 per cent by 2015. The
company also reports being able to track progress against these targets with a
web-based tracking system that enables it to “benchmark our performance and to drive
improvement”. Wyndham Worldwide argued that “the first step in reducing our
environmental footprint is to measure impact”, and this led it to identify “energy
consumption and the resulting greenhouse gas emissions” as the “most material
environmental aspects”, and the company reports its long-term goal as being the
reduction of carbon dioxide emissions by 20 per cent by 2020 (Wyndham Worldwide,
2011 p. 31). Some of the top ten hotel chains also report on the importance of water to
their businesses. InterContinental Hotels Group (2012), for example, suggests that
“many parts of the world are already experiencing freshwater stress and that climate
change is expected to exacerbate these problems”. The company suggests that hotels
in temperate zones could conserve between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of their water
usage and it reports on a variety of water conservation initiatives including
water-efficient fixtures and appliances, water collection, treatment and reuse and
irrigation.
Marriott reports on its “integrated global environmental strategy that improves
energy efficiency, conserves water, builds more sustainable hotels and supports high
level projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions” and provides “environmental
performance indicators” Marriott, 2012, p. 32) at both global and continental levels.
More generally, Marriott outlines its work in developing industry standards for carbon
measurement, establishing criteria for the greening of furniture, fixtures and fittings
for the Hospitality Sustainable Purchasing Consortium, and working in partnership
with governments, non-governmental organisations, interest groups and communities
 IJCHM on a variety of conservation initiatives. Best Western (2012), on the other hand, reports
26,1 more general commitments, suggesting that its hotels “do everything from having in-
room recycle bins and linen re-use programs to geothermal and solar powered hotels
that actually sell power back to the grid” and that “every hotel in North America is
required to have a green program in place”, which could include “anything from using
recycled paper and installing low-flow shower heads to full participation with national
10 or international eco-labelling programs”.
A number of the selected companies stress their commitment to sustainable
sourcing. Hyatt, for example, reports that its responsible purchasing practices include
packaging shampoo and lotions in bottles made of 100 per cent recycled plastic, using
100 per cent recycled carpets, offering sustainably sourced menu options, and the
installation of some 74,000 LED light bulbs during 2011. Marriot reports on working
with suppliers to “advance the sustainability of their products to conserve energy,
reduce water use, increase waste diversion and to include more sustainable materials”
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and lists its achievements, which include “recycled content key cards, Eco-Smart
pillows, room ready towels, recycled material pens, low VOW paint, biodegradable
laundry bags, low energy light bulbs and coreless toilet paper” (Marriott, 2012, p. 38).
Under the banner “Sustainability in Our Kitchens” (Marriott, 2012, p. 38), Marriott
stresses that it has sought to encourage sustainability by purchasing organic and
responsibly sourced food and by establishing relationships with local farmers. In a
similar vein, Relais and Chateaux affirmed its commitment to the sustainable sourcing
of seafood products.
In addressing social issues a range of themes can be identified, including diversity
and equality of opportunity, employees’ work/life balance, training and development,
human rights, customer health, safety and security, links with local communities, and
donations to charity. Jumeirah, for example, reports that it “promotes a working
environment which is free from discrimination and where all colleagues are treated
with dignity, courtesy and respect” and that it “does not tolerate discrimination on any
basis, including discrimination based on race, colour, nationality, age, disability or
religion” (Jumeirah, 2008, p. 32). Hilton stresses that “great guest experiences begin
with our team members” and claims to “strive to create a culture where team members
feel appreciated and empowered to build rewarding careers in hospitality within an
inspiring and stimulating work environment” (Hilton, 2012). To this end, members of
staff have “access to Hilton Worldwide University, our internal education program,
which includes courses ranging from management skills and personal development to
training in systems and processes” (Hilton, 2012). Hyatt emphasises its commitment to
helping its employees to “reach their highest potential throughout their careers” and
reports on the Hyatt Leadership Network, a virtual learning management system that
“provides tools and resources for career development and personal growth” (Hyatt,
2012). Wyndham Worldwide reports on its “Be Well Program” (Wyndham Worldwide,
2011, p. 38) for its employees, which includes health fairs and biometric screening, free
advice from registered dieticians, a tobacco dependency program, lifestyle
management programs, and health and fitness facilities.
A fundamental commitment to hotel guests and a concern for their health, safety
and security loom large in the selected companies’ sustainability agendas. Jumeirah,
for example, reports “we develop products and services based on guest needs and
preferences which we gather and store in secure guest profiles”( Jumeirah, 2008, p. 14)
 and that it “designs and delivers repeat guest amenity programmes”. The company Sustainability in
also stresses that its staff are “trained in fire, high level security threat scenarios and the hotel
emergency evacuations” ( Jumeirah, 2008, p. 15). Marriott claims that its “brands
remain strong as a result of superior customer service” and reports that its guest industry
loyalty program has “38 million members” (Marriott, 2012, p. 22). Customer feedback is
seen to be critical to successful customer service and to customer loyalty, and the
company reports on the high “guest satisfaction scores” (Marriott, 2012, p. 16) 11
emanating from this process.
The top ten hotel chains generally report on their links with the local communities
and on their donations to charity as important elements in their sustainability
commitments. Marriott, for example, reports on its “Spirit To Serve Our Communities”
(Marriott, 2012, p. 26) strategy, which in 2011 delivered some $23m in cash and kind
donations to organisations worldwide. The company’s employees raised a further
$4.9m for their local communities through company-sponsored events and volunteered
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some 400,000 hours valued at $9.4m. The company also reports on its work in
“addressing housing and hunger needs”, particularly “in times of disaster”, on “aiding
sick and impoverished children”, and emphasises its long-term relationship with a
number of international aid agencies (Marriott, 2012, p. 26). Best Western describes
itself as “a company that cares”, and it outlines its work in helping poorer communities
by providing access to food, clean water supplies, health care and education. Hilton
claims that “celebrating cultures is at our core” and that it looks to “celebrate and
preserve the unique cultural heritage of the communities where we operate” (Hilton,
2012).
Commitments to the economic dimensions of sustainability receive much less
coverage, but capital development, employment creation, and building shareholder
value are seen as important tissues. Marriott, for example, suggests that in the future a
significant share of its hotel growth will be in developing markets in Brazil, China,
India and in a number of African countries, and that this will contribute to economic
growth and development within these emerging economies. As a specific illustrative
example the company reports on the development of a series of new hotels designed
specifically for the growing Indian business market, which it estimates will create
some 80,000 new jobs. Jumeirah asserts its belief that it “can positively contribute to
the socio-economic welfare of our host communities by creating unique employment
opportunities” (Jumeirah, 2008, p. 18). More generally, IHG argues that throughout the
world its hotels “provide opportunities for economic development, new business, much
needed jobs and technology transfer” (InterContinental Hotels Group, 2012). IHG also
reports on commissioning Oxford Economics, a major economic forecasting
consultancy, to examine the impact of its operations in three of its major markets,
namely the USA, UK and Brazil. This study revealed, inter alia, that the group was
directly responsible for 90,000 jobs in the US hotel industry, that the economic activity
generated by the group’s employees income supports over 179,000 jobs within the US
economy, and that the corresponding figures for the UK and Brazil are 20,000 jobs and
46,000 jobs and 3,600 jobs and 6,700 jobs, respectively. Wyndham Worldwide
emphasises that its stakeholders “are significant drivers of our sustainability
program”, and that its “shareholders keep us focused to make a difference and to drive
for results” (Wyndham Worldwide, 2011, p. 20) In a similar vein, Marriot argues that
 IJCHM its stakeholders play an important role in “helping to shape our sustainability
26,1 strategy” (Marriott, 2012, p. 2).

Discussion
Sustainability is attracting increasing attention within the global hotel industry, but
there are marked variations in the volume and the detail of the data and information
12 posted by the top ten hotel chains. Although the majority of the leading hotel chains
claim strong commitments to sustainability, several of them also recognise, either
explicitly or implicitly, that they are at the beginning of what may be a lengthy and
arduous journey, and as such a range of issues merit discussion.
Firstly, the way in which the world’s leading hotel chains construct their definitions
of sustainability merits attention. These definitions can be interpreted as being
developed around efficiency and a commitment to securing competitive advantage
within the marketplace, and they reflect business demands rather than fundamental
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concerns for sustainability or for the maintenance and enhancement of natural

ecosystems. While a number of the top ten hotel chains’ environmental commitments
are designed to reduce natural resource consumption, for example, they also produce
cost savings. At the same time, commitments to staff development programmes and to
diversity in the workplace encourage stability and loyalty amongst the workforce.
More generally, Deloitte suggested that most companies select which environmental
and social data to report on, and as such effectively determine their definitions of
sustainability, “based on their own intuition and experience” and on “one-to-one
consultations with stakeholders or stakeholder panels” (Deloitte, 2012, p. 2). Deloitte
(2012) has further argued that such methods do not help managers establish a relative
ranking of sustainability issues “based upon what matters most to the business”
(Deloitte, 2012, p .2) and would seem to privilege commercial imperative in the
construction and development of sustainability agendas. That said, the leading hotel
chains’ construction of sustainability, which emphasises business efficiency, could
certainly be seen to be broadly consistent with some governments’ commitments to
sustainability. The UK Government’s vision for sustainability, for example, looks to
“encouraging economic growth while protecting the environment and improving our
quality of life” (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, 2013).
Secondly, given the range of sustainability commitments being pursued by the
leading hotel chains, it can be difficult to align various targets and goals. At the
corporate level, for example, Marriott’s commitment to “reducing costs whenever
possible”, for example, may threaten its commitment to “guest satisfaction” and to
“purchasing organic and responsibility sourced food [. . .] and establishing
relationships with local farmers” (Marriott, 2012, p. 38). At the level of the
individual hotel, managers who are looking to deliver on business deadlines and
targets may, if facing problems with scheduling staff, demand that employees work
hours and days that are not consistent with their work/life balance or refuse to allow
employees to attend staff development programmes. While these tensions are common
to many large companies looking publicly to pursue wide ranging sustainability
agendas, they are at least partly exacerbated in the hotel industry in that a number of
the leading hotel chains operate, in part at least, a business model based on managing
and franchising hotels rather than on direct ownership. Within this model, the hotel
company does not manage employees, operations and maintenance, and at Marriot, for
 example, the focus is on working “with owners and franchisees to ensure that brand Sustainability in
standards are met” and to “encourage sustainable operational practices” (Marriott, the hotel
2012, p. 7). Wyndham Worldwide reports that the majority of its hotels are
independently owned and operated by franchise owners and hotel development industry
companies, and while they argue that these owners and developers have a vital “role in
driving the direction of our global sustainability efforts”, in reality they are, at least,
one step removed from direct corporate control (Wyndham Worldwide, 2011, p. 20). 13
Thirdly, there are issues concerning the way the world’s leading hotel chains report
on and provide information on sustainability. Generally the accent is on providing a
simple narrative of sustainability commitments and achievements. Sometimes such
narratives are illustrated with simple statistics and case studies, and photographs and
simple diagrams are widely used to illustrate general themes. While Wyndham
Worldwide, IHG, Jumeirah and Marriott sustainability/corporate social responsibility
reports all claim to reflect, be in line with, or comply with, global reporting guidelines,
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the other six of the top ten hotel chains provide information on sustainability in their
own idiosyncratic house styles. Overall, the lack of common reporting protocols and in
some reports the use of case studies makes it difficult to make any meaningful
comparison between one hotel chain and another or to attempt to assess the
contributions that the leading hotel chains are making towards the achievement of
global sustainability targets.
There is also little evidence of independent external assurance of the information
posted by the selected hotel chains. Only one hotel chain, for example, reported any
element of external assurance. Wyndham Worldwide commissioned Deloitte & Touche
to review its reporting of just one component of its wide ranging sustainability agenda,
namely greenhouse gas emissions. Deloitte & Touche qualified its review by noting
that “environmental and energy use data are subject to inherent limitations, given the
nature and the methods used for determining such data”, and concluded that “nothing
came to our attention that caused us to believe that the Statement of Greenhouse Gas
Emissions by Wyndham Worldwide is not presented [. . .] in conformity with the
Greenhouse Gas Protocol published by the World Business Council for Sustainable
Development and the World Resources Institute” (Wyndham Worldwide, 2011, p. 54).
The widespread lack of independent external assurance certainly seems to undermine
the credibility of the information on sustainability made publicly available by the
leading hotel chains. However, these hotel chains are large, complex and dynamic
organisations. The work involved in the accurate capture, processing and storage of
information and the provision of access to this data to facilitate independent external
assurance is undoubtedly a time-consuming and expensive venture, and it is one which
the world’s top ten hotel chains are currently not pursuing.
Finally, there are arguably more fundamental tensions between sustainability and
economic growth. On the one hand the leading hotels’ position on sustainability and
growth might be seen to be epitomised by Marriott, for example, in that it reports that
its “sustainability goals support business growth” and by Wyndham Worldwide
which claims that its “commitment to global sustainability comes at a time of exciting
growth” (Wyndham Worldwide, 2011, p. 54). IHG recognises the tension between the
continuing growth of tourism and the environment but argues that this “creates a
space for innovation” and suggests that this tension provides “an opportunity to find
innovative solutions to the environmental, social and economic effects of our business”
 IJCHM (InterContinental Hotels Group, 2012). On the other hand there are arguments that
26,1 economic growth, dependent as it currently is, on the depletion of the earth’s finite
natural resources, is incompatible with sustainability. This is epitomised by Jackson’s
(2006) argument that “the consumption patterns that characterise modern Western
society are unsustainable. They rely too heavily on finite resources and they generate
unacceptable environmental costs” (Jackson, 2006 p. 1).
14
Conclusion
This exploratory review of the global hotel industry reveals that there are marked
variations in both the volume and the detailed content of the information that the top
ten hotel chains post on the internet about their commitments to sustainability. While
these commitments cover a variety of environmental, social and economic issues, they
can be interpreted as being driven as much by a search for business efficiency gains as
by a genuine concern for sustainability and the maintenance and enhancement of
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natural ecosystems. As such the global hotel industry would seem to be following a
“weak” rather than a “strong” approach of sustainability and the lack of independent
external assurance, mentioned earlier, certainly calls into question the transparency
and credibility of the reporting process. More fundamentally the authors would argue
that the global hotel industry’s commitments to sustainability have been developed
within existing capitalist business models which are focused on continuing economic
growth. This, in turn, echoes Roper’s (2012, p. 72) belief that weak sustainability
represents “a compromise that essentially requires very little change from dominant
economic driven practices but effectively works to defuse opposition, increase
legitimacy and allow business as usual”.
However the industry would surely want to stress that “business leaders must also
run their companies successfully under present framework conditions while helping to
lead society towards the new framework conditions of sustainability” (World Business
Council for Sustainable Development, 2010, p. 5). The World Business Council for
Sustainable Development (2010, p. 5), further argues, for example, that such a
transformation “represents vast opportunities” as “the global challenges of growth,
urbanisation, scarcity and environmental change become the key strategic drivers for
business” and that in rising to meet these challenges “smarter systems, smarter people,
smarter designs and smarter businesses will prevail”. The leading hotel chains have a
global reach, with footprints in both developed and developing countries, and as such
they are well placed to take a leading role in tackling a number of the challenges
outlined above and, in some ways equally importantly, to be promoting and
publicising their endeavours and achievements to customers and within the
communities in which they operate.
While the exploratory nature and tightly defined focus of this paper does not
provide a basis for policy development it does offer a mirror in which the leading hotel
chains and the hotel industry at large might reflect on their current approaches to
sustainability and on public perceptions of those approaches. If the leading hotel
chains are looking to strengthen and extend their approach to sustainability then they
will need to undertake, or commission, research to investigate the most effective ways
that they can utilise marketing communications to make more determined efforts to
keep customers informed of progress in meeting sustainability goals. At the same time
the hotel chains may wish to explore how they might more effectively develop their
 approach to sustainability and enhance the transparency of their commitments and Sustainability in
achievements throughout their supply chains. the hotel
A number of future academic research agendas can also be identified across the
canons of hospitality management. In marketing, for example, interest might include industry
market research designed to explore what sustainability means to customers, holiday
companies, travel agents and consultants, if and why such stakeholders think it is
important, on the characteristics of consumers that care about sustainability and on the 15
extent to which such consumers are willing to change their patterns of hotel patronage.
Research might also focus on how sustainability issues are managed with
hotelier/supplier relationships and on the locus of and impact of power within such
relationships. Research into stakeholder perceptions of the relative importance of
external factors, for example, statutory regulation, global economic change and
reputation, and internal factors, for example, efficiencies in operating costs and the
desire to recruit and retain creative and talented employees, would be valuable in
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helping to more fully understand the development of the leading hotel chains’
commitments to sustainability. Such research might be profitably complemented by
investigations into the factors influencing, and the challenges facing, those hotel chains
which have, to date, made limited commitments to sustainability. Research into the
development of information systems designed to facilitate continuous improvements in
sustainability are in their infancy (Melville, 2010). That said, such work would seem to
offer fertile ground designed to enhance the role of information systems in promoting
sustainability within the hotel industry. Finally there is a need to investigate how more
open and transparent commitments to sustainability are reflected in profit margins and
stock market performance.

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Corresponding author
Peter Jones can be contacted at: [email protected]

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