Environmental certification and Spanish hotels’ performance in the 2008 financial crisis

Abstract

Limited funds available in times of financial crisis may lead hotel managers to deem environmental actions dispensable. Hence, the need to analyze whether hotels that decided to maintain environmental management measures during the 2008 crisis better withstood its negative effects. The aim of this study is to analyze whether environmental management influenced the performance of Spanish hotels during the 2008 crisis. Through the panel data technique, a comparison is made of how sales, workers and assets management affected the financial performance of hotels with and without environmental certification EMAS and ISO 14001 in the period prior to the financial crisis (2002–2007) and during it (2008–2013). The results demonstrate that, while for non-certified hotels, the effect of sales, workers and assets management on financial performance worsened in the crisis period, for certified hotels it remained the same. In addition, no evidence has been obtained to show that the financial performance of certified hotels was higher than non-certified hotels in either the period prior to the crisis or during it. Nevertheless, the general results confirm that certification permitted Spanish hotels to cope better with the crisis since the adverse effects were less severe than for the non-certified hotels.

Keywords:

• Environmental certification
• financial performance
• financial crisis
• EMAS
• ISO 14001
• hotel industry

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

José Antonio Cavero-Rubio

José Antonio Cavero-Rubio is PhD Associate Professor in Financial Economics and Accounting at Miguel Hernandez University of Elche. He is the director of the Economic and Financial Studies Department at this university. His research focuses on sustainable tourism development, hotels environmental certification and financial performance, agricultural industry and how they are intertwined with environmental certification, gender equality, transparency of public sector organisations and political parties financing. He has made contributions in these areas and has published in Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, Innovations in Education and Teaching International, Australian Accounting Review, Agricultural Economic Technical Information and Women's Studies International Forum.

Aracelí Amorós-Martínez

Araceli Amorós-Martínez is PhD Professor in Financial Economics and Accounting at Miguel Hernandez University of Elche. Her current research focuses on hotels environmental certification and financial performance, agricultural industry and environmental certification, goodwill impairment, and financial situation of political parties and financing laws with a comparative approach. She has made contributions in these areas and has published in Australian Accounting Review, Agricultural Economic Technical Information and Women's Studies International Forum.