The Hotel Industry
The hotel industry and hospitality ascended through the growth of capitalism, tentative relation and freedom to visit areas, which increased the urge for travel accommodations. Though hotels were devised to meet the needs that had increased from the people mobility all around the world, the hotel industry has advanced as an opening for travelers to attain their dreams and to fantasize with their lifestyles. It’s from this reasons that the hotel industry focuses much on the quest experience alongside with their satisfaction. Hotel owners are aware that the quest satisfaction determines the existence of their business as it is a major criteria for success. Satisfaction is defined as the overall evaluation of an individual’s experience with a product or service. Research indicates that satisfaction is obtained by meeting consumers’ expectations.
Recent emerging trends that guests are commencing to expect require hotels using sustainable practices. As research shows, guests contemplate hotels willingness to practice and implement sustainable development. The ecological framework of the earth is one of the central areas of importance to sustainable development (McDonough, 2006), since present living patterns are causing extreme effects on the environment. The outcomes of the movement formed in 1983 by the United Nations – Brundtland Commission of developing a definiion of sustainability were that sustainability is “the development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of the future generations to meet their own needs”. As an industry that has a responsibility to embrace sustainable development, the hotel sector is progressively accepting the concepts by implementing sustainable practices to cut their ecological effects.
The design and the comfort of a hotel environment meet a guest’s choice for hotel experience, their satisfaction and rouse a desire to recommend or revisit a hotel (Kasim, 2004); thus the comfort and aesthetics largely foretells a hotel’s financial success. Hotel guests have a high value of the comfort of the interior environment. Common perceptions say that sustainable or green design is not good looking and uncomfortable. If an adequate cooperation between the customers experience and hotel’s sustainable goals could be reached then new opportunities for business success will be opened (Kasim, 2004).The study objective has been divided into two: – major objective and minor objective.
The major objective is to determine the impacts of sustainable development in the hotel industry while the minor objective is to find the factors to consider on the realization of sustainable development in the hotel industry. As luxury hotels are beecoming a trend in the hospitality industry, many hospitality professionals are not clear of how sustainable development might fit in the environment and how those decisions might affect satisfaction. Considerable research has been conducted on hotels in relation to consumers values, service quality and guest loyalty, but few have been done on how sustainable development could improve hotel industry in general. This study will, therefore, assist hoteliers to understand the impact of sustainable development on guest satisfaction and their demands. The hoteliers will also be able to make up-to-date decisions related to hotel development. It will be helpful in environmental growth and will also provide relevant parameters to improve the industry for the governments of the countries with the developed hotel industry.
Sustainability is all about the balancing of the environment, equity and the economy; nevertheless, this study only focused on the environmental features of sustainable development and how does it touch the guests’ perception of style, luxury and comfort.The response rate of 15.6% may be considered low, although the analysis of 100 respondents represented a reasonably good size sample. A higher response rate could increase the validity of the study. During the rationalization of the survey, some questions were either reformed to be generalized or not included.
