The Development of a Green Practice Index for the Malaysian Hotel Industry

Abstract

In recent years, the hotel industry has recognized the need to have more environmentally friendly operations. The main focus, however, has been on improving environmental management practices in developed countries. Furthermore, most attempts to develop assessment tools for green practices have come from such countries as well, which have a different socioeconomic situation from developing countries. Therefore, to capture a <br />more accurate picture of environmental management practices from the developing country context, specifically a Malaysian context, the authors in this paper created an index to measure the level of green practices among<br />Malaysian hotels. Doing so, however, resulted in a search for green index development methods. This lead to the discovery that existing tools such as the Delphi method were not appropriate tools that could be used to develop a Malaysian green index. To address the above, the authors propose a green index development method that can be used for a Malaysian and developing country context. Hence, in this paper, the method of developing a green practice index for the Malaysian hospitality industry, the differences and advantages of this method compared to the commonly used Delphi method and finally the Malaysian Green Practice Index for the hotel industry are presented.<br /><br />

The Effect of Hotel Development on Sustainable Tourism Development

“…Environmental practices which drive operations, programs and activities are the essential components in an environmental management system that seeks to protect, enhance and reduce the organization"s impact on the environment (Siti-Nabiha, et al, 2014). However, focusing solely on environmental impact is not enough.…”

“…Understanding the impact of tourism on the environment should involve examining multi-disciplined development, and needs to include both social and economic concerns. The implication is that the environment covers a wide range of dimensions and relates not only to social involvement in the local community but also economic issues relating to organizational interactions with customers and other stakeholders (Siti-Nabiha, et al, 2014). In Malaysia, research on environmental management practices in hotels is limited with most studies having a focus on specific areas like environmental awareness and impact, environmental management practices of small and medium sized hotels and elements influencing environmental responsibility.…”

“…In addition, the increase in environmentally mindful tourists reveals a future trend that could jeopardise the industry if environmental matters are not addressed. Moreover, commitment to environmentally friendly practices could lead to better organizational performance as indicated by several researchers (Siti-Nabiha, et al, 2014). In the context of the hotel industry, environmental management can be seen as the management influenced adoption of a continuous process by which a hotel"s activities are monitored and suitable programs and activities implemented to reduce the negative impact on ISSN 1923-4007 E-ISSN 1923 the environment (Mensah, 2006).…”

“…Faulk (2000) declared that the first step towards a total quality environmental management system is the initial situation analysis of the organization's environmental practices to assess operational impacts, current attitudes and communications practices. Environmental practices which drive operations, programs and activities are the essential components in an environmental management system that seeks to protect, enhance and reduce the organization"s impact on the environment (Siti-Nabiha, et al, 2014), however, focusing solely on environmental impact is not enough. Tourism should lead to the development of physical, economic and socio-cultural infrastructures that translates into regional development (Gartner, 1996).…”

“…Tourism should lead to the development of physical, economic and socio-cultural infrastructures that translates into regional development (Gartner, 1996). As such, research on the importance of the environment to the tourism industry is not complete without the inclusion of general development and more particularly, sustainable development issues (Siti-Nabiha, et al, 2014).…”