Energy consumption patterns in the accommodation sector—the New Zealand case

Abstract

The concept of sustainability is more and more established as an integral component in modern economies. A major threat to sustainability is the escalating demand for energy resulting in the depletion of natural resources and a concomitant threat to the global climate from the emissions produced. Although tourism and its sub-sectors, such as transport, accommodation, and attractions, constitute an increasingly important part of many economies, their contribution to energy use is not well researched. Particularly, in popular tourist destinations, such as New Zealand, tourism could be a significant contributor to energy consumption. As every tourist relies on the provision of accommodation, this is considered a core sub-sector within tourism. Previous case studies have indicated that accommodation is an energy-intense sector, however, comprehensive research on energy use patterns is missing. This paper contributes to the understanding of energy use within the accommodation sector by analysing the New Zealand scenario. The main objectives are the exploration of differences in energy consumption between hotel, bed and breakfast, motel, backpacker, and campground accommodation categories, and the role of factors such as business size in this consumption. Based on this analysis benchmarks are established for each category for total annual energy use and energy intensities, such as energy use per visitor night. When aggregated the total energy use of the accommodation sector in New Zealand is also estimated. The results reveal that hotels are the largest (net and per capita) energy consumers in the accommodation sector, making up 67% of the total 1.74 PJ consumed in 1999 in the accommodation sector. This constitutes 4.4% of the commercial sector's energy use and 0.4% of the total energy use in New Zealand.