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ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN THE ACCOMMODATIONS PDF

202 Pages·2008·1.6 MB·English
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ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT IN THE ACCOMMODATIONS SECTOR IN THE ANGLOPHONE CARIBBEAN By MECHELLE NICOLE BEST A DISSERTATION PRESENTED TO THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA 2008 1 © 2008 Mechelle Nicole Best 2 To my mother, Althea and sister, Harriet. Your unwavering support means more than I can ever express. 3 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank God for continuing to bless me and for the opportune reminders that my burdens only seem to be more than I can bear. I also thank my family (the Best a person could have) and friends for being stalwart in their support. For all those times when the light at the end of the tunnel appeared dim or non-existent, they saw it for me; their confidence in my abilities continues to astound me. I thank my committee for supporting me through my time at the University of Florida, in particular for giving the nod to my research which was along a road less traveled. I thank my committee chair Dr. Brijesh Thapa, simply for being himself. Brij exemplifies attention to detail, that element that I’ve always believed separates excellence from being merely good. Brij was meticulous in his guidance of my research, yet at the same time retained his easy going nature which has encouraged so many graduate students within and outside our department. I am very fortunate to have had a chair who willingly gave up nights and weekends to ensure I met my deadlines. I thank Dr. Taylor Stein for agreeing to sit on my committee without having met me, for introducing me to benefits-based management, extension service, Jackson County and nature- based tourism in the state of Florida, and for being the coolest boss ever. Taylor’s readiness to acknowledge the work of others is a truly remarkable trait. I thank Dr. John Confer for guiding me through the initial years of this PhD program, for sharing his Ecotourism course with me, and for introducing me to diffusion of innovations theory. I also thank him for his quiet words of encouragement in the last two years and for being so very generous with his praise. Finally, I thank Dr. Stephen Holland for his very practical approach to research, for his useful comments on the development of this particular study, and for giving praise whenever he 4 felt it was due. I also thank Dr. Holland for his wry sense of humor which I glimpsed for the first time on my introductory trip to Jackson County. December through March is a very busy time in the Caribbean hotel industry and I am grateful to Caribbean hoteliers for reminding me that their interest in our industry extends way beyond the day to day operations of their properties. I therefore thank them for participating in my study. I also thank the Executive Vice President and the Chairman of the Sustainable Development Committee of the Bahamas Hotel Association, along with the Executive Vice Presidents of the Anguilla Hotel & Tourism Association, the Grenada Hotel & Tourism Association, and the St. Kitts & Nevis Hotel & Tourism Association for encouraging their members to participate in the study. Finally I thank my friends and colleagues from around the region for helping me to ‘ground truth’ the information in my database. I thank the US Department of State’s Fulbright Program and the Organization of American States for funding my first two years of study through the Fulbright/OAS Ecology Scholarship for the Eastern Caribbean. I am also grateful to my department, the Department of Tourism, Recreation & Sport Management for granting me a graduate teaching assistantship to facilitate my final two years at the University of Florida. It would be remiss of me to omit my Caribbean Posse in Gainesville. I thank them for keeping me sane with their insanity, for helping me to stay current with the affairs of the world, for the application of their finely tuned scientific minds to everyday events, and for slaking my thirst for all things Caribbean. I’d like to specially thank Cindy, for traveling with me across the state of Florida for research and other purposes, and Grace-Anne, my Stats Guru. It is very difficult to lose faith when one is surrounded by the faithful. I am very grateful to all who have helped me to keep the faith. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS...............................................................................................................4 LIST OF TABLES...........................................................................................................................9 LIST OF FIGURES.......................................................................................................................12 ABSTRACT...................................................................................................................................13 CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION..................................................................................................................15 Statement of Problem.............................................................................................................18 Theoretical Foundation...........................................................................................................20 Contribution of Study.............................................................................................................22 Purpose of Study.....................................................................................................................24 Research Questions.................................................................................................................25 Environmental Management...........................................................................................25 Environmental Management Outcomes..........................................................................25 Environmental Management and Outcomes...................................................................26 Definitions..............................................................................................................................26 2 LITERATURE REVIEW.......................................................................................................29 Tourism and the Environment................................................................................................29 Sustainable Tourism...............................................................................................................37 Environmental Management in Business...............................................................................39 Environmental Management in the Accommodations Sector................................................43 Motives............................................................................................................................46 Facilitators.......................................................................................................................49 Constraints.......................................................................................................................50 Outcomes.........................................................................................................................53 Environmental Management Systems and Certification.................................................54 Hospitality and Tourism in the Caribbean..............................................................................57 Environmental Management in the Caribbean Accommodations Sector...............................59 Diffusion of Innovations Theory............................................................................................61 Applications of Diffusion of Innovation.........................................................................65 Gaps in Diffusion of Innovation Research......................................................................68 Summary.................................................................................................................................69 3 METHODS.............................................................................................................................77 Study Sites..............................................................................................................................77 Selection of Participants.........................................................................................................78 6 Data Collection.......................................................................................................................79 Instrumentation.......................................................................................................................81 Environmental Management...........................................................................................81 Motives............................................................................................................................82 Facilitators.......................................................................................................................82 Constraints.......................................................................................................................82 Outcomes.........................................................................................................................83 Treatment of Data...................................................................................................................83 Environmental Management...........................................................................................84 Environmental Management Outcomes..........................................................................85 Environmental Management and Outcomes...................................................................85 4 RESULTS...............................................................................................................................91 Profile of Participants and Hotels...........................................................................................91 Environmental Management...................................................................................................93 Frequencies of Variables........................................................................................................94 Motives............................................................................................................................94 Facilitators.......................................................................................................................95 Constraints.......................................................................................................................97 Outcomes.........................................................................................................................98 Results of Research Questions Tested..................................................................................100 Environmental Management.........................................................................................100 Environmental Management Outcomes........................................................................110 Environmental Management and Outcomes.................................................................111 5 DISCUSSION.......................................................................................................................133 Summary of Results..............................................................................................................133 Diffusion of Environmental Management in the Accommodations Sector..........................135 Hotel Characteristics.............................................................................................................138 Motives for Environmental Management.............................................................................139 Facilitators of Environmental Management.........................................................................142 Constraints to Environmental Management.........................................................................144 Outcomes of Environmental Management...........................................................................146 Theoretical Implications.......................................................................................................148 Management and Policy Implications..................................................................................149 Delimitations.........................................................................................................................152 Limitations............................................................................................................................152 Future Work..........................................................................................................................154 APPENDIX A SURVEY INSTRUMENT....................................................................................................156 B LETTER FROM THE BAHAMAS HOTEL ASSOCIATION............................................175 7 C CONTACTS WITH HOTELS.............................................................................................176 D ADDITIONAL COMMENTS FROM RESPONDENTS....................................................179 LIST OF REFERENCES.............................................................................................................191 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH.......................................................................................................202 8 LIST OF TABLES Table page 2-1. Stayover tourists and economic contribution in selected Caribbean destinations in 2006....................................................................................................................................73 2-2. Caribbean tourist arrivals by primary market........................................................................73 2-3. Adoption of cleaner technologies in Caribbean hotels..........................................................74 3-1. Accommodations in the Anglophone Caribbean....................................................................87 3-2. All-Inclusive hotels in the English Caribbean 1993 & 1999.................................................87 3-3. Consumption of goods and services by the Caribbean accommodations sector....................88 3-4. Questionnaire Distribution....................................................................................................88 3-5. Levels of environmental management....................................................................................88 3-6. Motives for implementing environmental management.........................................................89 3-7. Facilitators of environmental management...........................................................................89 3-8. Constraints to implementing environmental management....................................................90 3-9. Outcomes of environmental management.............................................................................90 4-1. Hotels participating in survey..............................................................................................112 4-2. Profile of respondents..........................................................................................................112 4-3. Profile of hotels...................................................................................................................113 4-4. Hotels’ organization membership........................................................................................114 4-5. Importance of natural environment in the accommodations sector (frequency in percentage).......................................................................................................................114 4-6. Level of familiarity with environmental management in the accommodations sector........114 4-7. Decades of environmental management implementation....................................................114 4-8. Levels of environmental management in place in hotels....................................................115 4-9. Types of environmental management certification.............................................................115 4-10. Budget allocations for environmental management..........................................................115 9 4-11. Motives for implementing environmental management (percentage)................................116 4-12. Facilitators of environmental management (percentage)..................................................116 4-13. Constraints to environmental management (percentage)..................................................117 4-14. Outcomes of environmental management (percentage)....................................................118 4-15. Property type and environmental management in place....................................................118 4-16. Property size and environmental management in place....................................................119 4-17. Property ownership and environmental management in place..........................................119 4-18. Guest origin and environmental management in place.....................................................119 4-19. Organization membership and environmental management in place................................120 4-20. Importance of the natural environment to the accommodations sector.............................121 4-21. Constraints to environmental management.......................................................................121 4-22. Lvel of environmental management regressed on hotel characteristics............................122 4-23. Regression of level of environmental management on motives........................................122 4-24. Reliability analysis for factors of motives for implementing environmental management.....................................................................................................................123 4-25. Factor analysis of motives for environmental management..............................................123 4-26. Regression of level of environmental management on motives factors.............................123 4-27. Level of environmental management regressed on facilitators.........................................124 4-28. Factor analysis of facilitators of environmental management...........................................124 4-29. Reliability analysis for factors of facilitators of environmental management...................125 4-30. Regression of level of environmental management on facilitators factors.......................125 4-31. Level of environmental management regressed on constraints.........................................126 4-32. Factor analysis of constraints to environmental management...........................................127 4-33. Reliability analysis for factors of facilitators of environmental management...................128 4-34. Regression of environmental management on constraints factors....................................128 10

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introducing me to benefits-based management, extension service, Jackson County .. Environmental Management Systems and Certification . development in the 1950s, with the Bahamas and Jamaica in the Anglophone Caribbean, and.
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