Greening within the Johannesburg tourism and hospitality sectors

Tourism and hospitality is a booming industry with negative impacts on the environment. In order to keep up with consumer demand the industry is utilising more natural resources than previously assumed, questioning sustainability practices within the industry. However the industry can contribute to sustainable development by adopting greening principles. Unfortunately, there is limited research to establish how hotels in South African fare in the adoption of greening principles. This paper seeks to explore how important going green is to the South African government, hotel management, hotel employees and hotel shareholders. The paper reports on empirical results for and anonymous four star hotel in Johannesburg specifically within the hospitality industry and which also services the tourism industry. Empirical work by way of semi- structured interviews is reported on to explore the adopting and challengers of implementing greening principles and practices. Results indicate that adoption of greening within the hotel industry is limited with more direct support needed for hotel employees by hotel management. Communication is also needed from regional head office to hotel managers on greening initiatives. However, there is also a need for the South African government to guide hotels on implementation of greening practices