Hotel environmental impact management: A case study in Cádiz Province

Abstract

The high consumption of natural resources and energy made by hotel companies, together with the corresponding waste generation, has placed the hotel sector in an ideal application field for environmental social responsibility policies. So much so that the environmental performance of hotel companies has received increasing attention, which has led to an increasing number of hotels designing and implementing socially responsible measures focused on environmental protection. The present work is focused on the study, from a social responsibility approach, of the implications of policies and measures for environmental management in the hotel sector, exposing not only the various operational areas in which they arise, but also the possible motivations of management to start these programs. To complete the work, we analyse, using the case method, the environmental policies carried out in one of the leading hotels of the province of Cadiz, Spain, for pioneering the application of the same, the Hotel Playa Victoria, owned by Palafox hotel chain. © 2012 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.