Perspectives on Sustainable Tourism Development in the Hotel Industry—A Case Study from Southern Europe

Abstract

Sustainable development is in many ways the fundamental basis of tourism. The importance and role of sustainable tourism development in the 21st century is at the center of this paper on eco-certificates and green procurement in the hotel industry, within the field of the responsible or green economy. The green hotel economy implies the selection of accommodation in environmentally responsible hotels and other facilities, which are directing their business operations towards green procurement, eco-labeling, and the responsible economy. This paper includes quantitative research of the attitudes of 506 international tourists, who expressed their views on their needs regarding eco-hotels and the green economy in the hotel industry. This research also included the collection of data on green (responsible) businesses by surveying 100 hotels situated in the capitals of southern Europe. Comparing results from hotels with the needs of tourists in terms of the green economy in the hotel industry, significant results were obtained that contribute to sustainable tourism development.

Is Being Responsible Sustainable in Tourism? Connections and Critical Differences

“…Another example of a conventional mass tourism context is the (TOI) to Sustainable Tourism [131], which relates to a broad research area of indicators and certification in sustainable tourism (see [132][133][134][135]). There are numerous other certifications for sustainable tourism, but the TOI is a very demonstrative one here.…”

Youth’s perception toward ecotourism as a possible model for sustainable use of local tourism resources

“…At the same time, the implementation of the National Ecotourism Strategy (Celac and Vadineanu, 2018) will contribute to the integration of ecotourism and rural tourism into the "green economy" and "green marketing" (Nistoreanu et al, 2020;Dragomir and Mazilu, 2021), although in Romania there is no regulation in national legislation to make the "green labeling" of tourist structures with accommodation function (Mitrică et al, 2021). The green tourism economy involves the selection of environmentally responsible accommodation facilities, which pay special attention to "green" purchases, "green" labeling, and the responsible economy (Trišić et al, 2021). Businesses that adopt green trends and integrate them into their own strategies are more likely to survive in the marketplace in the future (Buric et al, 2022).…”

A Review Research on Tourism in the Green Economy

“…These certificates follow certain standards; for example, the ISO has established a number of general global quality and environmental management standards for manufacturing and service industries that are also applied in the hospitality industry, such as ISO 9001 (quality management), ISO 14001 (environmental management), OHSAS 18001 (occupational health and safety) and ISO 22000 (food safety standard). In general, the benefits of green certification in tourism to environmentally sustainable growth are acknowledged in the research (Lebe and Vrečko 2015), mainly in the application of eco-certification in international tourist hotels (Chen 2019;Bandara et al 2018;Abdou et al 2020;Trišić et al 2021). Voluntary compliance of tourism businesses with sustainability certification is also a way to gain competitiveness against local competitors (Panzer-Krause 2017;DeBoer et al 2017).…”