Pathway to Environment Management in Hotel Industry: A Stakeholder Engagement Framework

ABSTRACT

The hotel industry plays a crucial role in the global tourism sector, and with increasing awareness of environmental issues, it is essential for hotels to actively engage in sustainability management. The existing literature offers limited insights into how the stakeholders of hotels can contribute more to improve the EM in the hotel industry. Embracing stakeholder engagement can empower hotels to strategically tackle environmental sustainability challenges through collaborative efforts with diverse stakeholders. This engagement involves identifying and actively engaging key stakeholders such as hotel owners, employees, customers, local communities, suppliers, and government agencies. This study aims to explore stakeholder engagement in driving effective environmental sustainability initiatives within the hotel industry. By conducting in-depth interviews, observations, and on-site observations in three cities in China, the study uncovers the distinct roles and engagement pathways of different stakeholders groups concerning hotel environment management. Th proposed stakeholder engagement framework elaborates the intricate relationships and inter-dependencies between various stakeholders, and their engagement in hotel environment management.

摘要

酒店业在全球旅游业中扮演着关键角色。随着人们对环境问题的日益关注，酒店积极参与可持续性发展管理至关重要。现有文献对于酒店业的利益相关者如何为改善酒店环境管理做出更多的贡献见解有限。通过利益相关者参与可以让酒店与不同利益相关者达成通力合作，继而战略性应对环境可持续发展的挑战。这种参与涉及识别和积极让酒店业主，员工，顾客，当地社区，供应商，以及政府机构等利益相关者参与其中。本研究旨在探讨如何通过利益相关者的参与使得酒店业环境可持续性管理举措更加有效。通过在中国三个城市进行深入访谈，观察，和实地考察，本研究揭示了不同利益相关者在酒店环境管理中的独特角色和参与途径，根据研究结果所提出的利益相关者参与框架阐述了不同利益相关者之间错综复杂的关系，相互依赖性，以及他们在酒店环境管理中的参与度。

KEYWORDS:

• Environment management
• stakeholder engagement
• hotel environment sustainability
• stakeholder salience
• hotel sustainability pathway

关键词:

• 环境管理
• 利益相关者参与
• 酒店环境可持续性
• 利益相关者持著性
• 酒店可持续发展之路

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the [Public Policy Research (PPR) Fund of Chief Executive’s Policy Unit, Hong Kong SAR #1] under Grant [number: 2023.A6.220.23A]; [Research Seed Fund by ZJU-PolyU Joint Center #2] under Grant number [number: ZUPUC-2023-01HT].

Notes on contributors

Dan Wang

Dan Wang is an Associate Professor in School of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China. Her research interests include tourists decision-making, information technology, and sustainability (Email: [email protected]).

Mei Yang

Mei Yang, a D.HTM Graduate from School of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, is currently a Regional Manager (Asia Pacific) for Distribution Strategy, Hyatt Hotels Corporation. Her research interest lies in hotel sustainability and stakeholder management (Email: [email protected]).

Zhiming Deng

Zhiming Deng is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong SAR, China. Her research foci have been on infomration technology, sustainability, and cognitive psychology (Email: [email protected]).