Waking up to a green globe: environmental management in the international hotel industry

The growth of travel and tourism received a boost after World War Two as European nations entered a period of economic recovery during the 1950s and 1960s. Tourism was viewed as a means to improve the economy and gain foreign investment (Edgell, 1990; Shackleford, 1985). As early as the 1950s, the International Union of Official Travel Organisations (later to become the World Tourism Organisation) was already aware of the need to protect the tourism environment (Shackleford, 1985). However, awareness of environmental concerns and subsequent action by hotel managers on environmental issues has not grown as quickly or universally as it has within the large international tourism and hotel organisations. The objective of this paper is to determine whether the current level of environmental action by international hotel businesses is enough to achieve environmental sustainability within the industry. This objective will be addressed through the study of a specific tourism industry environmental management program called Green Globe