Malaysian Hotels Towards Sustainability Practices: Are They Ready?

Abstract

There has been a rising trend in the expansion of the tourism and hospitality industry which has contributed towards strengthening the economy and prosperity in many countries globally. The increase in visitors has given a tremendous boost to local businesses but has also created increasing concern about the sustainability of the Malaysian hospitality offer. This study aims to investigate the current sustainability practices in the Malaysian hotel industry. There are ten hotel managers from 3 – 5 star rated hotels in Malaysia has participated in this in-depth semi-structured interviews. The gathered data were transcribed and coded to gain a better understanding of the results. The findings of this study have identified there are four practices initially implemented by Malaysian hotels in the early stages of environmental practices, namely; water and energy savings, waste management and using local suppliers. Also, the findings of this study provided several suggestions where the implementation of said practices could be successfully undertaken.