Hotel Sustainability: Balancing Environmental Responsibility and Business Success

This article provides an overview of hotel sustainability, beginning with a contextualization of sustainability in the hotel sector and summarizing the main impacts that hotels have on the environment, before outlining both the challenges and the opportunities of implementing sustainability initiatives in hotel businesses. Specifically, it is argued that while hotels significantly impact the environment due to their extensive resource use and waste generation and that there are costs associated with lessening these impacts, raising sustainability performance could not only bolster the industry׳s environmental stewardship but also enhance the brand perception and long-term financial viability of the hotels that do so. Finally, it is outlined that a growing body of research indicates a consumer preference for sustainable practices, with some willing to pay a premium for such accommodations. It is proposed that this trend, coupled with effective marketing communication strategies, could yield significant benefits for the hotel industry, ultimately strengthening its commitment to sustainable practices and directly benefiting hotel businesses in the long term.