Major ethical challenges for/in Hospitality industry - Essay Example

36), witnessed today in the hospitality industry. In addition, the hospitality industry has failed to address the ethical issues that concern it, appropriately. Stevens and Fleckenstein (1999) consider that it is crucial for the hospitality industry to embrace ethics, compared to other industries, mainly because of its nature, as it is a service industry. Most companies in the hospitality industry invest heavily in a positive image, but this might count as loss, if they are involved in unethical practices that are uncovered publicly (Pettijohn, Pettijohn, and Taylor, 2008).

Waddock & Smith (2000) and Dimitriou, Blum, Adams & Kim (2011) note that embracing ethical principles increases company profitability. Hammond & Slocum (1996) also noted the importance of companies embracing social responsibility, as part of their ethical values. Nonetheless, the hospitality industry, like other industries, has its own unique challenges, including ethical challenges. However, developing strategies of countering these challenges is important to ensure continued ethical operations, which are beneficial to a company.

This essay will mainly address the ethical challenges in the hospitality industry, and how different companies attempt to address them. This also uses the ethical framework of utilitarianism to explain the case of ethics in the hospitality industry. Ethics in business refers to the appropriate behavior, which a business must adhere to, in its interaction with customers, both individuals and in groups (Kapoor n.d). Various researches have shown that the hospitality industry, especially hotels, still lag behind in matters concerned with ethics, compared to other companies in different industries (Maximiliano 2011: Stevens n.d). Nonetheless, unethical practices in the hospitality industry affect the industry, employees, stakeholders, and the overall community.

Some of the ethical challenges facing the hospitality industry today include, but not limited to employee underpayment and the hiring of illegal immigrants (Holjevac 2008). All these are responsible for different problems in the companies’ host countries and global market. In the present hard economic times, underpaid employees and other victims of the companies’ unethical operations are influenced negatively. Like other companies, companies in the hospitality industry are after making huge profits and competing favorably in the highly competitive market.

Therefore, ethical operations become a challenge to these companies when ethical acts lead to more costs in the company (Holjevac 2008). For instance, decent employees’ salaries require a company to incur extra costs; therefore, a company might choose to underpay its employees, which is unethical, to cut on costs. Nonetheless, such ethical challenges can be solved by appropriate financial and time management, which will result in a balance between profits and costs. An important ethical challenge the hospitality industry faces is about environmental protection.

Companies are responsible for playing their role in environmental conservation by ensuring that their actions do not lead to environmental degradation. This is a major ethical issue for the hospitality industry, as its operations rely more on the environment. Hotels use large quantities of water, electricity, and gas, among other natural