Drivers for Pursuing Sustainability through IoT Technology within High-End Hotels—An Exploratory Study

Pernille Eskerod, Svend Hollensen (), Manuel Francisco Morales-Contreras and Jesús Arteaga-Ortiz
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Pernille Eskerod: Business & Management Department, Webster Vienna Private University, 1020 Vienna, Austria
Manuel Francisco Morales-Contreras: Business & Management Department, Universidad Pontificia Comillas, ICADE, 28015 Madrid, Spain
Jesús Arteaga-Ortiz: Department of Economics and Management, University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, 35017 Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 19, 1-21

Abstract: A growing hotel sector makes a significant environmental footprint. Due to a contemporary focus on climate change and high competition within tourism, enhancing sustainability through energy savings is a priority for many hotels. Through technological innovations, Internet-of-Things (IoT) technology provides the opportunity to integrate more systems (e.g., heating, air-conditioning, window-openings) on a platform (also known as smart management), making it easy for a hotel guest to operate room conditions through a single device while also optimizing hotel operations. A research gap on the likelihood of adopting IoT technology to pursue sustainability in the hotel sector exists. Based on explorative case studies of five high-end hotels, this paper offers propositions on drivers for hotels’ use of IoT to deliver on their sustainability goals. This study suggests that a hotel is more inclined to implement IoT if (1) the hotel is focused on energy savings, e.g., due to green certificates; (2) it belongs to an international hotel group; (3) decision makers perceive sustainability to be important for their customers; (4) the target group is more B2B (business) than B2C (leisure); (5) the hotel a five star one; and (6) the hotel guests come from Northern Europe or North America.

Keywords: sustainability; Internet-of-Things; drivers; hotel industry; hotel management; smart management; smart devises; high-end hotel (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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