Contemporary Environmental Issues on Hospitality Industry Essay

Introduction

Hospitality industry, like any other industry, is greatly dependent on the outside environment this is why its concern with certain environmental issues is natural. Lately, the constituents of the hospitality industry demonstrated a clear understanding “that environment sustainability is a matter of necessity” (Parida and Mishra 2004, p.34) and that environment has a profound effect on the functioning of this industry. Hospitality industry is the one which uses such resources as energy and water to the biggest extent (Lockyer 2007). This makes saving of energy and water resources the first environmental issue which has influence on the hospitality industry. Another issue is water and air pollution. Since some sectors of hospitality industry are closely connected with recreation and health improvement (Fasulo and Walker 2007), quality of water and air are vital for it. They are directly connected with meeting the demands of the customers and obtaining the expected profit. These environmental issues affect lives of people worldwide because they have not only economical, but social and cultural implications as well. Saving energy and water resources is necessary for the hospitality industry, because these are the resources which it utilizes the most. Fighting with water and air pollution, as well as observing the standards of drinking water supply are vital for proper functioning of this industry and health of the consumers. These environmental issues have numerous social and cultural implications which increase their importance.

Discussion

To begin with, saving of energy and water resources is one of the most vital issues in the hospitality industry. The matter is that saving of resources influences directly the welfare of the hospitality industry. This especially concerns energy resources. Hospitality industry consumes a great amount of energy, “because it is a diverse industry, a large proportion of which is devoted to servicing the needs of other industries such as the welfare and industrial sectors” (Webster 2000, p.61) Hospitality industry may be characterized by an incessant operation, which means that its sectors function all the year round. This is why saving energy each day will influence greatly the overall results of saving of energy resources during the year. This task is rather challenging for the hospitality industry management, because it involves a number of activities which they will have to be in charge of. The management should take into account a wide range of factors which the amount of energy consumed by any sector of the industry depends on. The most significant factors are “the size and location of the building, the specifications to which it has been built, the heating and lighting systems that it employs, and the activities that take place inside it” (Webster 2000, p.62). When evaluating energy efficiency, it is important to determine which energy costs each sector of an operation requires and then reduce the costs of these sectors depending on the necessity of energy consumption. When planning energy-saving strategies, the managers of the hospitality industry should consider “what the current energy requirements of the building are, in order to calculate … the most cost effective measures to implement in the short term” (Webster 2000, p.64). Location of the building belonging to hospitality industry is one of the key factors responsible for the consumption of energy by this building. For instance, if the building is situated in the exposed area (for instance, on the seafront) and its frontage is rather broad, “more heat will be lost than if a building is located in a sheltered spot, for example in a town centre or in a warmer climate” (Webster 2000, p.64). These characteristics should be taken into account by hospitality industry management who should find ways to reduce energy consumption by such buildings or to compensate for it (this can be done through reducing energy consumption by the buildings which do not need much heating).

Saving water resources is especially important for certain sectors of hospitality industry. This concerns lodging industry in the first place, because numerous hotels, camping sites, and boarding houses use water for cleaning, drinking, bathing, fire safety systems, and sanitary purposes; moreover, “food and beverage operations use water for food preparation, cooking, and a variety of cleaning purposes; laundry operations are also substantial consumers of water; grounds and landscaping can consume significant amount of water as well” (Pizam 2005, p.648). This means that any activity which takes place in this sector of the hospitality industry involves using water resources at least to some extent. Thus, hospitality facilities “require relatively large amounts of water and create large amounts of wastewater” (Pizam 2005, p.648). The consumption of water depends on the size of the building and such amenities as swimming pools. Each day hotels use large amounts of water:

The hotel water usage ranges from 101 gallons per available room per day in a hotel with less than 75 rooms, to 208 gallons per room per day in a hotel with 500 or more rooms. This amount averages out to 154 gallons per available room per day, or 56.210 gallons of water per room per year. (Chandra 2004, p.295)

This makes tourism (which constitutes 30% of guests in any country) responsible for utilizing 16.843 gallons of water per every room annually. As far as the entire lodging industry is concerned, it “has been estimated to use 154 billion gallons per year, with tourism therefore accounting for about 46.2 billion gallons per year” (Chandra 2004, p.295). These numbers show that hospitality industry, especially its sectors responsible for lodging, are in a great need of saving water resources. This would add some work for the management of the hospitality industry, which will have to find out ways to reduce the amount of the water utilized by every sector. Management of the hospitality industry should organize campaigns for saving water resources aimed to making people who use their services more environmentally conscious (Jones and Martin 2004). If each sector of this industry will be able to reduce the amount of the consumed water at least to 5-7 percent, the overall numbers will not be so striking. Thus, saving water and energy resources is extremely important for the hospitality industry, because it has a great impact on its functioning and development.

Furthermore, air and water pollution is another environmental issue which the hospitality industry has to deal with. Clean air is commonly associated with any recreation area; the place where people have rest and entertain themselves should, first of all, be useful for their health. This being the reason, air pollution is one of the biggest problems which hospitality industry management encounters. This inevitably influences the state of this industry and the work of its management. Their most important task in frames of this issue is to ensure the best indoor air quality (IAQ) for people who use their services, especially when it comes to the countries where air pollution is the greatest. Ensuring good air quality involves certain expenses which the hospitality industry management should take into consideration. Failure to do this may lead to serious consequences and even bigger expenses; thus, “the cost of poor IAQ in the hospitality industry alone exceeds $19 billion. This estimate includes absenteeism and sick leave, health-related costs, turnover, and productivity improvement” (Burroughs and Hansen 2004, p.5). Smoking is one of the causes of such pollution. Taking into account that “over 20% of the adult population still smoke, the control of the problem contaminant remains a concern to the building owner or manager of facilities that contain smoking designated places” (Burroughs and Hansen 2004, p.135). Introducing smoking bans seem to be one of the solutions to the problem of poor indoor air quality. Nevertheless, it is not easy to enforce these bans because it can significantly lower the revenues of such sectors of hospitality industry as bars and restaurants. The managers of these sectors keep to an idea that “ventilation or air cleaning, often in conjunction with designated smoking areas, provides acceptable alternatives to smoking bans” (Henningfield, Santora, and Bickel 2004, p.190). This is also unlikely to involve greater expenses than those which bars and restaurants will have to bear in case they prohibit smoking in the buildings. Apart from smoking, “indoor air quality issues involve the exposure of a building’s occupants to various air pollutants: particles, gases, and biological organisms, for example mold, and a formulation of standards regarding ventilation and health protection” (Pizam and Holcomb 2007, p.153). It is the responsibilities of hospitality industry management to follow these standards and to ensure that the buildings correspond to them. Their task in terms of this issue is to organize events and activities aimed at “determining required levels of ventilation to sustain acceptable (IAQ) across a variety of facility designs and assessing the effectiveness of IAQ control technologies in controlling human exposure to indoor pollutants” (Pizam and Holcomb 2007, p.145).

As it has been already mentioned above, hospitality industry is one of the biggest water consumers this is why water pollution is a no less vital issue for it. Tackling the problem of water pollution for this industry should start with careful discharging of its own wastes, “particularly toxic wastes such as pesticides or cleaning chemicals from laundry areas” (Barth and Hayes 2005, p.124). Management of hospitality industry sectors bears large responsibility for discharging waste and should be aware of numerous laws and standards this procedure entails. In addition, they should take care about the quality of the drinking water, because this aspect is directly connected with the health of those who use their services. They need to make sure that the following precautions are observed:

Water from a public water system must meet National Primary Drinking Water Regulations and state drinking water quality standards. Water from a nonpublic water system also must meet state drinking water quality standards. Water from a nonpublic water system needs to be sampled and tested at least annually and as required by state water quality regulations. (Arduser and Brown 2005, p.296)

Hospitality industry management is also responsible for the bottle water they supply their customers with. Of course, the primary responsibility lies on the bottle water manufacturers, but it is the management’s obligation to obtain goods only from the approved sources (Arduser and Brown 2005). Drinking water pollution cannot be dealt with, but the management should take all possible measures to avoid bacterial infections which spread through drinking water, because it directly influences the reputation of hotels, resorts, and the related sectors of the hospitality industry (Yu 2002). The preventive measures are likely to involve certain expenses, but they will hardly be higher than those which the lawsuits from the consumers who suffered from the polluted water are going to entail. Therefore, management of the hospitality industry should always remember about the air and water pollution and take correspondent measures to protect the consumers from their harmful influence.

Finally, such environmental issues as saving of energy and water resources, as well as fighting with air and water pollution have certain social and cultural implications. Socially, all these issues can help to make people more environmentally conscious. This concerns hospitality industry in the first place, though the influence on other industries will be no less considerable. Among social implications which saving of energy resources may involve, “greater awareness of social responsibility” (Strong and Hemphill 2006, p.118) is one of the most significant. Desire to save energy resources and to find substitutes for them (such as renewable energy systems) will considerably change social structures and patterns of living:

The influence of modern science and technology will insure that there are considerable improvements to older methods, and subsequently standards of living can be expected to rise, especially in the rural sector. It is impossible to predict the long term effect of such changes in energy supply, but the sustainable nature of renewable energy should produce greater stability than has been the case with fossil fuels (Twidell and Weir 2006, p.24).

This shows that searching for renewable energy systems and utilizing them will involve significant social consequences. Saving of water resources will also entail numerous social changes, such as working out of water supply projects. They will tangibly increase financial and social costs, but will help to fight with water scarcity for food production, which is vital for the hospitality industry. For this, management of this and other industries will need to do the following:

1. Invest in infrastructure to increase the supply of water for irrigation, domestic, and industrial purposes;
2. Conserve water and improve the efficiency of water use in existing systems through reforms in water management and policy, and
3. Improve crop productivity per unit of water and land through integrated water management and agricultural research and policy efforts, including crop breeding and water management for rainfed agriculture. (Resegrant, Cai, and Cline 2002, p.22).

This scenario can be regarded as one of the social implications of saving water resources, because it involves a number of social activities and social costs. One more social implication of water shortages is the increasing price for this resource (Economy and Council of Foreign Relations 2005). Prices for what is rare are always high and water is not an exception; its shortage and increasing of prices for it may serve as a motivation for people to save as much of it as possible. As far as water and air pollution is concerned, the main social implications here are health implication for people who have to consume contaminated water and breathe polluted air. Both polluted and air water may lead to serious health problems (Johnstone, Hascic, and Jones 2008, p.41) in children and adults, this is why fighting with pollution will turn attention of all the people. Another social implication rising from this one is sparing out money for purifiers from the governmental and local budgets, which will affect the welfare of citizens.

Cultural implications of the environmental issues in question are no less serious. What is even more important is that the first issue, shortage of water and energy resources, has both positive and negative cultural implications. Culturally, such environmental issues as saving of water and energy resources and dealing with water and air pollution touch upon every nation and unite them in a common goal. On the other hand, those countries which have more resources at their disposal provoke international conflicts which lead to the enforced limited consumption of these resources (Chall 2000, p.2711). A vivid example of this is the functioning of monopolies in Russia which is “attempting to establish strategic control over its energy resources against the preferences of the EU” (Aalto 2008, p.56). Monopolies of energy resources may make different nations unequal in possessing of the resources which primarily belong to the nature; this shapes biased opinions regarding definite nations and hinders the development of intercultural. The main cultural implication of water and air pollution is changing of cultural attitudes about the quality of the water and its usage, as well as about the air contamination. For instance, countries which are known for their resorts may become not so popular among tourists because of air and water contamination; this will significantly change the attitude of other people to such countries and their culture. Moreover, this will entail the loss of value of cultural heritage of the nations living in these countries.

Conclusion

In sum, saving of water and energy resources and dealing with water and air pollution are the most important environmental issues which the hospitality industry is currently preoccupied with. Since this industry is one of the biggest consumers of water and energy, the management should take measures to reduce this consumption and to make those who use the services of hospitality industry more environmentally conscious. All the sectors of this industry should observe drinking water standards and take care about proper waste discharging, because they are responsible for health and welfare of people who they supply with their services. Taking measures on preventing the air and drinking water contamination will entail financial expenses, but they will be much less than those which the ruined health of the consumers may involve. These environmental issues have certain social and cultural implications. For instance, energy and water shortages lead to increased prices for these resources, which results in an increased awareness about the necessity of saving these resources by means of implementing different projects and strategies for energy and water supply..Major social implications of air and water pollution include health problems of people who live in contaminated areas, as well as certain costs from local budgets for purifiers, which also affects the welfare of these people. Culturally, shortage of resources leads to cultural conflicts between the nations which possess more of these resources and those which do not have them. Water and air pollution results in losing the value of cultural heritage in those countries whose resorts became contaminated.

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