Drivers for Pursuing Sustainability through IoT Technology within High-End Hotels—An Exploratory Study

Abstract

A growing hotel sector makes a significant environmental footprint. Due to a contemporary focus on climate change and high competition within tourism, enhancing sustainability through energy savings is a priority for many hotels. Through technological innovations, Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology provides the opportunity to integrate more systems (e.g., heating, air-conditioning, window-openings) on a platform (also known as smart management), making it easy for a hotel guest to operate room conditions through a single device while also optimizing hotel operations. A research gap on the likelihood of adopting IoT technology to pursue sustainability in the hotel sector exists. Based on explorative case studies of five high-end hotels, this paper offers propositions on drivers for hotels’ use of IoT to deliver on their sustainability goals. This study suggests that a hotel is more inclined to implement IoT if (1) the hotel is focused on energy savings, e.g., due to green certificates; (2) it belongs to an international hotel group; (3) decision makers perceive sustainability to be important for their customers; (4) the target group is more B2B (business) than B2C (leisure); (5) the hotel a five star one; and (6) the hotel guests come from Northern Europe or North America.

Tourism towards Sustainability and Innovation: A Systematic Literature Review

“…In the case of high-end hotels, there are six main drivers for pursuing sustainability through IoT (Internet-of-Things) technology, namely: (1) energy savings (e.g., due to green certificates), (2) international hotel group, (3) sustainability importance for customers perceived by decision-makers, (4) majority being B2B (business) target group rather than B2C (leisure), ( 5) five-star hotel, and (6) hotel guests' origin [20].…”

Hospitality Industry 4.0 and Climate Change

“…The IoT will allow more efficient energy use based on smart devices and energy-saving systems. According to Eskerod et al [ 44 ], the use of smart energy management systems could reduce hotel energy costs by between 20 and 25%. Many hotels are employing smart lighting, temperature control equipment, and devices such as compact fluorescent bulbs and LED lights to reduce energy use [ 62 ].…”

“…Use of sensors to monitor HVAC systems saves time and reduces maintenance requirements. A control center can provide information related to lighting including energy consumption per light fixture [ 44 ]. Industry 4.0 technologies enable automatic adjustment to room temperatures and automatic switching off of lights and TVs when guests leave their rooms.…”

Improving the service industry with hyper-connectivity: IoT in hospitality

“…Smart lights and temperature control mechanisms can help manage the energy consumption with real-time monitoring, improving the profit margin by reducing dominant factors in cost calculation (Bilgihan et al, 2011;Eskerod et al, 2019;Narraidoo, 2020). The prominent example is adjusting room temperature in hotel rooms using heat and occupancy sensors when the room is empty to save energy (Curcio, 2011) in addition to costs (Bilgihan et al, 2011).…”