Abstract:
In the contemporary society of environmental awareness is steadily gaining support, hotel is forced to join the discussion of whether or not to go green. Green practice in hotel sector is more advanced in some countries such as The United States of America compare to Taiwan. Therefore, a lot of issues regarding green hotel operation still remain untapped, which is the main motivation behind this study. The aims of this study were to: (1) discuss the potentiality of Green Hotel in Chiayi, Taiwan; (2) identify the key success factors of green hotel operation from managerial perspective in Taiwan; and (3) find out the key success factors affecting the hotel green image, hotel green performance and hotel green ability in Chiayi, Taiwan. First, given the intention of this research is to understand green hotel, it is reasonable to interview managers of hotel. A qualified participant is an individual who has worked at a hotel for at least 5 years at a management position. Second, 223 respondents were surveyed to explore the key success factors affecting the hotel green image, hotel green performance and hotel green ability in Chiayi, Taiwan. For the first aim of this study, this research used a decision making analytical tool, specifically analytic hierarchy process (AHP), to study importance of factors from a different perspective. Analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was often used in decision-making process that involved multiple decision makers. From the literature review, one had a list of factors effecting hoteliers' decisions to adopt environmentally friendly practices. The list was shown to 6 hotel managers to eliminate redundant items and refined remaining items into 4 categories with a total of 20 items. These items were presented to 20 managers of 3 to 5 star hotels in Chiayi, Taiwan. Some of the experts were university professors in the Department of Hotel Management. Presentation was in a pair wise comparison format. The data were analyzed with AHP software named Expert Choice allowing measurement of the relative importance of the items to decisions to adopt environmentally friendly management. For the second aim of this study, this research employed SEM (Structural Equation Modelling) to explore the key success factors affecting the hotel green image, hotel green performance and hotel green ability in Chiayi, Taiwan. The results of the study allow reflection on factor importance. One finds that hoteliers' abilities to create a greener image are the most important contributor to the managers' decisions to adopt greener management. Hotels' ability to go green remains an important contributor for their decision to adopt environmental management. What was interesting was that an item of this category, cost control for greening, was the least important contributor. Hotels' organizational and administrative ability was the third most important contributor