Discuss about the Environmental Sustainability in Hospitality Industry.
This research will focus on two variables – financial stability and sustainability. The primary focus will be made on the Hospitality industry or Hotel business in Saudi Arabia. In this part, the aim, objective and questions of the research will be disclosed. At the same time, the significance of the research will also be mentioned.
According to Palich and Reed (2016), sustainability of a business organization is depended on its financial stability. Financial stability indicates the future capacity of the company. At the current scenario, it can be identified that the companies are competing to achieve sustainability by improving the financial conditions of them (Jones, Hillier and Comfort 2016). However, in case of hotel business, the demand of the customers is huge, which requires high investments in the business operations. Due to this, the operational costs of the companies or hotels are increasing and the cash inflows are decreasing, which is negatively affecting the financial health of the organizations. In surveys, it has been identified that the panic of losing the sustainability is growing in the hotels in Saudi Arabia (Mayo, Jarvis and Lane 2015). Therefore, it will be required to identify the how much sustainability of the hotels is affected by the financial stability.
This research will aim to identify and analyze the relationship between the financial stability and sustainability in context to hotel industry in Saudi Arabia.
The objectives of this research will be as follows:
The questions of this research will be as follows:
This study will analyze the current financial position of the hotel industry in Saudi Arabia. This analysis will identify the reasons behind the financial fluctuations in the hotel industry of the country, which will ultimately help the hotels to take care of their weak areas. At the same time, the study will also provide the possible situations that can help the hotels in forming their strategies for achieving better financial stability as well as sustainability.
The term financial stability refers to the state of financial health of the organization for two or more years. Bruns-Smith et al. (2015) stated that financial stability of a company indicates its performance standard and efficiency level during a particular period. According to Melissen, van Ginneken and Wood (2016), achieving financial stability is very important for the companies because it enhances the business scope of the company. In the support of this, Xu and Gursoy (2015) mentioned that if a company is financially stable, then it can invest more fund in its business development. For example, Standard Chartered bank in UK is a financially stable organization and due to that it has invested enough funds to expand its business in other countries. Therefore, it is important for the companies to become financially stable.
On the other side, sustainability refers to the situation, in which all the needs of a business organization are met without compromising the requirement of the future. In the words of Matthew, Fada and Ukonu (2016), sustainability is the assurance regarding the secure future of the business organization. At current competitive scenario of business world, achieving sustainability is a big question for the companies.
There are mainly two theories of sustainability – Four capital theory and Natural capitalism theory (Shkurkin et al. 2016). According to the four capital theory, the overall sustainability of a business organization requires achieving the sustainability in four areas and these are – social sustainability, financial sustainability, environmental sustainability and manufacturing sustainability. Palich and Reed (2016) stated that the social sustainability refers to the sustainability in the human capital of the company. This theory suggest that the organizations can achieve social sustainability by recruiting or utilizing skilled workforce, creating social networks, building team bonding and good relationships among the employees and implementing proper internal system. Bruns-Smith et al. (2015) noted that financial sustainability can be achieved through correct budgeting, maintaining positive cash flow and controlling the cost level. Environmental sustainability can be achieved through the optimum utilization of resources and the manufacturing sustainability can be achieved by creating appropriate infrastructure for the business.
The natural capitalism theory includes a bunch of approaches – Radical resource productivity, Biomimicry, Services and flow economy and Investing in natural capital (Mayo, Jarvis and Lane 2015). The first approach suggests the utilization of resources in such a way that helps to reduce pollution and any damage to the natural resource and environment. Matthew, Fada and Ukonu (2016) mentioned that the second approach suggests applying the reuse strategies in the business organizations, so that the resource crisis can be avoided. The third approach suggests maintaining the flow of services in the economy for maintaining the consumption level. The last approach in this theory suggests restoring the natural resources to maintain the sustainability.
Xu and Gursoy (2015) stated that financial stability is very important for every business organization. The management of the organizations applies different strategies to achieve stability in the financial position. Some of the most common strategies of achieving financial stability in the business organizations are as follows:
Controlling the cost level – The organizations must have strong control over their cost levels (Mayo, Jarvis and Lane 2015). Moreover, the organizations must try to minimize their cost level as much as possible. This actually helps the organizations to improve their income level, which helps to achieve the financial stability.
Maintain the positive cash flow – The organizations must maintain the positive cash flow balance. In order to do that, the management of the organizations must be aware of the expenses and they must encourage the production and sales. If the sales of the organization can be increased by keeping the expense level same, then the positive cash inflow can be maintained (Jones, Hillier and Comfort 2016).
Preparing appropriate budget – While preparing the budget, organization must take care that the budget is prepared appropriately by considering each possible situations. While preparing the budget, the management must have all information regarding the products and services, cost and income of the company.
Investigation in a research work must be done in such a way so that the results of the research can be achieved easily and in complete manner. The investigation in a research depends on the selection of philosophy, approach and design of the research. Mackey and Gass (2015) stated that there are mainly three research philosophies, which can be used during the research. These three research philosophies are – positivism philosophy, realism philosophy and interpretivism philosophy. Among all of these three research philosophies, this study will select only the positivism philosophy. This particular philosophy will be used because this philosophy will help to conduct the research on logical ground (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015). Positivism philosophy will analyze the research data logically on the basis of the existing theories and literature.
In case of research approach, there are mainly two different research approaches are available – deductive research approach and inductive research approach. Deductive approach helps to test the existing literature with the help of proper observations. At the same time, the deductive approach helps to complete the overall research project within the minimum possible time (Silverman 2016). On the other side, the inductive research approach is lengthy and more complicated than deductive approach. Therefore, this study will select the deductive approach, so that it can reach to the research results easily and within the limited available time.
Apart from philosophy and approach, the investigation also depends on the research design. The design of the research can be of three types – descriptive design, exploratory design and explanatory design (Flick 2015). The research in descriptive design is preplanned and well-structured. This design of research is easier to understand and simple to follow. On the other side, exploratory research design aims to explore the new ideas or thoughts and the explanatory research design helps to conduct the research in more detailed manner, which is much time consuming (Marais and Pienaar-Marais 2016). Therefore, in this research, the descriptive research design will be followed, so that the research can be done in a well-structured manner.
Data collection is the most important task in a research project. Silverman (2016) mentioned that the success of a research depends on the quality of the data that it uses. There are two types of data that can be used in a research project and these are – primary data and secondary data. When the data is collected for the first time, it is known as primary data. The primary data is collected through interview, observations, survey and focus group study. Mackey and Gass (2015) stated that the primary data of the research are more biased and collecting the primary research data takes more time.
On the other side, when the data for a research is collected from several existing sources like, different journals, articles, internet sources and books. In the words of Flick (2015), secondary data is actually the existing data and the level of biasness in this type of data is less than the primary data. At the same time, collecting the secondary data takes less time. However, during this particular research, the primary as well as secondary data will be used. The secondary data will be collected during the literature review. It will provide the basic knowledge regarding he research topic (Taylor, Bogdan and DeVault 2015). The primary data will be collected by interviewing the managers of different hotels in Saudi Arabia. The interview participants will be selected by using the non-probability method of sampling. Approach will be made to 10 managers and it is expected that at least 7 will reply back.
For a research, there are two techniques of data analysis available – quantitative technique and qualitative technique. Quantitative technique helps to analyze the data in mathematical way. On the other side, qualitative data analysis technique helps to analyze the data in detailed manner (Marais and Pienaar-Marais 2016). In this particular study, qualitative data analysis technique will be used to analyze the research data in detail. Apart from that, the positivism philosophy also supports the qualitative data analysis technique.
At the time of conducting a research, several ethical issues may take place. In order to avoid any kind of ethical issue, this study will take several steps. At first, the study will take permission from the appropriate authority. At the same time, it will maintain the confidentiality of the interview participants and maintain the reliability and validity of the research data.
There are several limitations that this research may face while conducting the final work. The first limitation that it may face is the shortage of time. Along with that the available money for the research will be also limited. On the other side, it will be also difficult to take appointment from the managers of the hotels for the interview.
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Activities |
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Week 6 |
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Topic selection for the research |
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Reviewing the existing literature |
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Setting the objectives, questions and the aim of the research |
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Methodology selection |
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Collection the primary data for the research |
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Analyzing the research data |
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Concluding the study and providing recommendations |
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Preparing the final draft |
Table 1: Gantt chart
(Created by author)
Reference list:
Bruns-Smith, A., Choy, V., Chong, H. and Verma, R., 2015. Environmental Sustainability in the Hospitality Industry: Best Practices, Guest Participation, and Customer Satisfaction.
Flick, U., 2015. Introducing research methodology: A beginner’s guide to doing a research project. Sage.
Jones, P., Hillier, D. and Comfort, D., 2016. Sustainability in the hospitality industry: Some personal reflections on corporate challenges and research agendas. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 28(1), pp.36-67.
Mackey, A. and Gass, S.M., 2015. Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.
Marais, H.C. and Pienaar-Marais, M., 2016, May. Analysis of Research Methodology in Business and Management Studies as Reflected in the ECRM 2015 Proceedings. In ECRM2016-Proceedings of the 15th European Conference on Research Methodology for Business Management”: ECRM2016 (p. 167). Academic Conferences and publishing limited.
Matthew, D.A.A., Fada, A. and Ukonu, I.C., 2016. Role Of Financial Ratio Analysis In Assessing Business Performance In The Hospitality And Tourism Operations. Development, 4(4).
Mayo, E.J., Jarvis, L.P. and Lane, P.A., 2015. How Fast Can a Service Firm Grow?. In Proceedings of the 1988 International Conference of Services Marketing (pp. 1-10). Springer International Publishing.
Melissen, F., van Ginneken, R. and Wood, R.C., 2016. Sustainability challenges and opportunities arising from the owner-operator split in hotels. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 54, pp.35-42.
Palich, L. and Reed, M., 2016, January. Hotel Belmar: Can an Eco Hotel Be Financially Sustainable?. In United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship. Conference Proceedings (p. FJ1). United States Association for Small Business and Entrepreneurship.
Shkurkin, D.V., Sogacheva, O.V., Logvencheva, E.S. and Khramova, M.N., 2016. Modernization of the Sphere of Tourist and Hospitality Industry of the South of Russia as a Growth Factor of Socio-economic Stability of the Region. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 6(1S), pp.101-106.
Silverman, D. ed., 2016. Qualitative research. Sage.
Taylor, S.J., Bogdan, R. and DeVault, M., 2015. Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Xu, X. and Gursoy, D., 2015. A conceptual framework of sustainable hospitality supply chain management. Journal of Hospitality Marketing & Management, 24(3), pp.229-259.
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