CSR and sustainability practices of the hotel industry

The hotel industry constitutes an important part of tourism industry. While on one hand, the presence of luxurious hotel facilities adds on to the revenues related to tourism by attracting more number of tourists, at the same time, these get counted as activities which can consume additional amounts of energyandwater resources and also generate large quantities of waste (Bohdanowicz, 2005). The hotel and lodging industry accounts for 8% of energy consumption in the service sector (Dahlstrom, 2011, p. 195). Hotel guests are often less concerned about conserving resources such as water and power when they are away from home. It has been estimated that seventy-five percent of hotels’ environmental impacts can be directly related to excessive consumption (Bohdanowicz, 2006; Lu, Wei, Zhang, Kong, & Wu, 2013). Since the hotels are involved in luxury services and these services actually contribute to the energy, water and waste management related problems, it is important to study the sustainability related issues pertaining to the industry as the demand to make this industry environmentally sustainable is growing.