Hospitality Facilities Management - Essay Example

Running Head: HOSPITALITY & ENVIRONMENT (The impact of hospitality operations on the natural environment is of great concern and corporations and operations are implementing initiatives that will reduce the devastating impact on our environment caused by such operations and individual operations are implementing initiatives that will reduce the devastating impact on our environment caused by such operations. Some of these initiatives are……) Hospitality Industry: Impact on the natural environment and steps towards its preservation ……………………………. (Name) ……………………………… (Institution) Hospitality Industry: Impact on the natural environment and steps towards its preservation Hospitality industry and natural environment: The connection Hospitality is world’s largest service industry. Like any other industry, Hospitality industry interacts with the environment, uses its resources and as it grows at a fast pace, puts strain on the natural environmental and its resources (Johnson, 2004). The growth of Hospitality Industry and its impact the natural environment The proliferation of Hospitality activities means travel and stay in and out of a large floating population to a destination. This means more people with little or no knowledge of local environment or customs. The traditional customs and practices are always in tune with the natural environment as they are a result of centuries of practice and improvisation and adjustment to nature. Moreover these non resident people are less likely to have a proper understanding and respect for local natural environment and local customs. Not that being a resident is a Guarantee of a being sensible to local environmental concerns. However, the traditional wisdom does ensure such sensibility to quite an extent. Although, an increasing influence of market forces and materialism has made traditional knowledge take a back seat in most places. Since this floating population is there for a short duration, their consumption of resources is such that they look for convenient disposal of the waste generated in the process of consumption of products or services. For example: Guests/Tourists prefer disposable items like disposable utensils for food and beverages while on the move, since it is difficult to carry all those items of routine use. The waste generated in the process of preparation or during consumption of meals is usually left as garbage in most places if there are not proper waste disposal facilities in near vicinity. They don’t seem to have the motivation or incentive to wait for an appropriate time or place to dispose the waste appropriately. Articles like used cells, wrappers, spoilt films etc. are usually left behind at places where there is no immediate garbage bin located. Even if there are, the items left behind are usually non bio degradable which poses a threat to the natural environment. This is among the root causes of Hospitality industry increasingly becoming a threat to the natural environment of a place or region. There is another issue as well. Every destination or city has its own level and share of resources and a pace or capacity at which it can renew them and present it to its people therein for consumption. This is called the ‘carrying capacity’ of that destination. The term ‘carrying capacity’ has natural environmental implications as well as socio cultural. Besides as mentioned above, there is a deep relationship between the two. Now, the consumption patterns are increasingly being determined by market forces. Thus, the levels of consumption or demand of resources often far exceeds the carrying capacity of the destination. This creates great imbalance and problems not only for the local population, but also for the very sustenance of tourism activity and hence hospitality services in the area at least in a near future. Repeated onslaughts of such nature threaten to completely drain the place of its resources and might result in a breakdown or at least a slowdown of all tourism and Hospitality operations in a given area. This raises the issue of ‘sustainable development’ of Hospitality industry. At this juncture, it is very important to understand the concept of sustainable tourism, since the Hospitality industry is a major component of the tourism sector. ‘Sustainable tourism’ is tourism in a form that can maintain its viability in an area for an indefinite period of time, whereas sustainable development in the context of tourism is tourism that is developed and maintained in an area such a manner and at such a scale, that it remains viable over an indefinite period and does not degrade or alter the environment in which it exists to a degree that it prohibits the successful development and well being of other processes and activities(Butler & Pearce, 1995) ‘Environment’ herein refers to the quality of natural resources such as landscape, air, sea water, fresh water, flora and fauna. The quality of built and natural resources should be as judged to have some value and be worthy of conservation. ‘Sustainable Tourism’ refers to achieving a specific combination of numbers and types of visitors, the sum total of whose activities at a given destination, together with the actions of the servicing businesses, can continue into the foreseeable future without damaging the quality of the natural environment. For sustainable tourism and Hospitality development, conservation of environment and management of visitor usage and servicing business are interlinked and are affected by the following factors: Guest/host behavior and attitudes The policies of the Hotels or lodging units and support service businesses The government policies and changes in technology (Middleton & Hawkins, 1998) Impact of Hotel buildings: One of the major sources of Hospitality industries’ impact on the surrounding natural environment is the Hotel and Resort buildings themselves. Primarily, there are two kinds of impact – Firstly, the processes used in building construction and renovation are detrimental to the balance of ecologically fragile and environmentally sensitive areas in which most hotels and resorts are situated. Secondly the material used for the same purposes is usually not compatible with the natural environment and again, contributes to disturbance in ecological balance by way of waste generation of physical or chemical reactions which affect the environment unfavorably. Most Hotels consume significantly more energy in the buildings than is really required. Global warming is a phenomenon wherein the atmospheric temperatures are on the rise due rise in the level of harmful gaseous matter. They affect the protective layers of the atmosphere and contribute to rise in air temperatures. This is leading to melting of glaciers which means slow death for major rivers of the world. The melting of polar ice means rise in level of sea level, which threatens life in coastal areas of the world. Unfortunately, air Travel contributes greatly to global warming since it burns a lot of fossil fuels. The fossil fuels are a fast depleting source of energy. Thus growth in International hospitality Industry and consequent increase in air travel is proving to be harmful to the natural environment. Initiatives and Steps to minimize the above impacts and preserve the environment As mentioned above, construction methods and materials greatly affect the environment, however, as a result of ongoing research in building technology and resulting breakthroughs have enabled Hotel industry to bring environment friendly buildings. Resort amenities too, are becoming more ‘environment friendly.’ For example, Golf resorts are using non chemical pesticides for its golf courses. A number of them are using golf carts powered by alternative energy sources. Awareness as to how to protect the natural environment is on the rise and more and more hotels are becoming environment friendly or ‘Green.’ An increasing number of hotels are taking measures like creating services or products that help guests with the problems emanating from the environment for example treated rooms for chemically sensitive or allergy prone people. Also, selecting suppliers with good reputation and established standards for helping environmental preservation. Hotel and Resort brands the world over are developing service concepts that can be called ‘green.’ Asian hotels are taking a lead in developing green services and products and branding them as environment friendly. In the Caribbean, the lodging sector is leading the world in number of certified environment friendly hotels. New models of niche luxury ecotourism resorts are being developed emanating from the Maho Bay camp in St.John in the Caribbean, which is supposedly world’s first ‘eco tourist resort.’ European boutique hotels are adopting the green tag as a differentiator of course only after incorporating environment friendly processes and products. High degree of general awareness about inclination environmental issues in Europe is fueling this upsurge. The Indian Government is boosting sustainable initiatives with certification mandates for judicious use of energy and water usage in commercial building construction, with a sizeable impact on the Hotel buildings. Latin America is witnessing a surge in nature based tourism. The Hospitality industry is providing tourists with unique experience based tourism products wherein guests and nature interact to realize a relationship. Middle-eastern hotel industry, though a little behind in environmental initiatives, are lately waking up to the movement and the region’s first environment friendly hotel is expected to open soon in Dubai. The Hospitality sector in Australia and New Zealand is witnessing emergence of a greener sector through mandatory environment friendly regimes. Similarly, in the United States, the lodging industry is focusing on green capacity creation as well as operational aspects, driven by legislative as well as market compulsions. The World Travel and Tourism Council has, under its green globe program clearly identified the following areas in which the Hospitality operations could act to become more environment friendly: Minimize waste through recycling, Energy conservation, Preservation of fresh water resources, Managing the waste water, Transportation management to minimize its effect on environment and its resources, Land use planning to ensure sustainability of the hotel operations, People –both staff and customer awareness about environmental issues, Sustainable, building, operations and products design, Partnering with bodies providing environment friendly services Thus it is evident that around the world, the Hospitality industry is waking up to the reality of protection and preservation of environment. Though, given the damage already done, we have still a long way to go. However, the efforts being made are not only on the part of the Governments but also, the industry as well as the customers are playing an important role in making the Hospitality services and operations as green as possible. Therefore we can hope for a better future of the Hospitality industry and its sustainability (Environmental leader, 2008). References Butler R. & Pearce D, Changes in Tourism: People, Places Processes, London, 1995. Environmental leader, “Global Hospitality Industry taking green steps”, December 23, 2008, Accessed on March 3, 2009 Johnson Elizabeth, “Hospitality: the world’s largest service Industry”,2004, Accessed on March 1, 2009, Victor C. Middleton and Rebecca Hawkins, ‘Sustainable Tourism: marketing Perspective’, Oxford,1998. Read More