Hospitality Industry Responses to Climate Change: A Benchmark Study of Taiwanese Tourist Hotels

Abstract

Hotels are one of the tourism businesses most vulnerable to climate change because of their fixed assets. Results are presented of a baseline study that explores the awareness, attitudes, and behaviours of Taiwanese tourist hotels with respect to climate change and its potential impacts as well as their overall environmental practices. Tourist hotels are defined by the Taiwanese government as hotel establishments of over 80 rooms in rural areas and 50 rooms in city areas. Although the 104 tourist hotels represent only 3.7% of the total number of hotels in Taiwan, they account for over half of international guest nights and had a combined revenue of over TWD$43 billion in 2010. Questionnaires were distributed via email to all tourist hotels in Taiwan and 45 valid returns were received, representing an effective response rate of 43.3%. The results of research illustrate the level of understanding of climate change within Taiwanese tourist hotels and identify the specific climate change adaptation and mitigation strategies that tourist hotels have initiated. Access to such baseline data provides a potentially significant contribution to evaluating the response of the Taiwanese accommodation sector to environment change as well as providing a basis for further comparative studies and benchmarking.