Awarding Sustainable Asia-Pacific Hotel Practices: Rewarding Innovative Practices or Open Rhetoric?

Abstract

Award programmes facilitate recognition and reward of innovative practices creating industry benchmarks for world-class standards. Growing recognition and adoption of sustainability practices and corporate social responsibility charters amongst hotels internationally is nudging the sustainability paradigm. However, comprehensive empirical data, detailing and describing these practices are under examination. This paper examines sustainable hotel practices of AsiaPacific hotels utilizing an exploratory inductive content analysis of self-reported award submissions. The submissions of 64 hotels to the Hotel Investment Conference Asia Pacific Sustainable (HICAP) Hotel Award scheme over 2009 and 2010 were analyzed. Three primary categories of sustainability practices were identified: operations-related, community engagement and design-related initiatives. A model of sustainable hotel practices is then proposed, which will assist hotel managers in benchmarking their organization to achieve higher levels of sustainability.

From Spectrum to Multiverse: A New Perspective on the Diversity of Quality Control Tools for Sustainable Tourism Theory and Practice

“…Awards are prestige-conferring mechanisms offering ephemeral recognition (usually one year). They are exclusive, with only one or several granted per award cycle (Weaver 2006; Weaver et al 2013). Codes of conduct build capacity through endorsed statements about commitment to socially and environmentally responsible behavior, while policies are rhetorical commitments to responsible tourism that may instigate higher-order QCT adoption (Mason 2007; Mason and Mowforth 1996; Weaver 2006).…”

“…Recognition of policy, for example, is evident throughout sustainable tourism inquiry (Ayuso 2007; Best and Thapa 2013; Dodds and Kuehnel 2010; Nicholls and Kang 2012). While few empirical studies explore awards (Weaver et al 2013) or codes of conduct (Ayuso 2006, 2007), they are amply conveyed in the conceptual and evaluative literature with examples from industry practice (Font and Tribe 2001; Mason 2007; Mason and Mowforth 1996; Toplis 2007). However, since Weaver (2006), no additional QCTs have been explicitly identified or proposed, although it is conceivable that the contemporary landscape is more diverse than so depicted.…”

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

“…Even though "sustainability is widely accepted as a 'good business' mega-trend in contemporary tourism and hospitality industry" [23] (p. 15), the acceptability of this attitude do not necessarily translate into sustainable practice. There are ample evidences of "greenwashing" as a sector-wide exercise [24][25][26].…”

“…There are ample evidences of "greenwashing" as a sector-wide exercise [24][25][26]. Nevertheless, as Weaver, Davidson, Lawton, Patiar, Reid, and Johnston [23] stated "growing recognition and adoption of sustainability practices and corporate social responsibility charters amongst hotels internationally is nudging the sustainability paradigm" (p. 15). In the meantime, "despite the almost universal support for sustainability and participation in at least some related initiatives, empirical data that comprehensively describes and organizes these practices are lacking in the tourism and hospitality literature" [23].…”

“…The main argument revolves around the concept of sustainability and its social, economic, and environmental agendas elaborated by WCED [30]; Weaver, Davidson, Lawton, Patiar, Reid, and Johnston [23]; and Harris and Goodwin [31].…”