Alfred Ogle

Tourism and hospitality small and medium enterprises and environmental sustainability

Purpose – While environmental sustainability is increasingly gaining relevance, it appears to have been ignored in certain areas, such as in research on water usage of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the hospitality and tourism industries. The purpose of this paper is to examine this dimension from the perspective of the operators.Design/methodology/approach – Semi‐structured face‐to‐face and telephone interviews were conducted with ten managers/operators in the Swan Valley region of Western Australia.Findings – Strong manager/operator awareness of the impact of their actions on the environment was demonstrated. Also salient was the factors impinging on implementation of environmental initiatives. Business demands or added costs also present challenges in fully materializing an operators environmentally sustainable practices, particularly concerning water consumption in service areas, such as in toilets, which represents a large proportion of total water usage.Research limitations/implications – T...