Barriers to environmental management systems (EMS): A case of 4 and 5 star hotels in İstanbul

In the late 1990s with studies that focused on the driving forces, costs and benefits and nature of such systems began about EMS. However, in tourism, very little research has been conducted on EMS, except for a few studies on environmental management, such as the environmental protection practices and environmental performance of hotels. In this study, we tried to determine the barriers to EMS of 4 and 5 stars’ hotels operating in Istanbul. In this regard, the aim of this study is to encourage the hotels how they implement EMS through eliminating the barriers. The data were collected from the top and mid-level managers of hotels between October and December in 2016 by face to face survey. Data gained from 114 hotels was analyzed via factor analyses, independent samples t-test and ANOVA. It was found that EMS barriers can be examined under three dimensions as; (1) lack of knowledge, skills and professional advice, (2) uncertainty of outcomes, (3) lack of resources and costs. On the other hand, hotels characteristics play an important role on these dimensions