Renewable energy for sustainable tourism: assessment of Macedonian hotels

Hotels consume substantial quantity of energy, water and other non-durable products, thus provoking significant environmental impacts. On the other hand, they rely on clean nature and unpolluted environment as a core value for hotel industry. Tourists more often abandon tourism destinations in poor environmental condition and trace for hotels with eco label, eco certificate and certificate for energy efficiency. Consequently, hotel industry is becoming increasingly environmentally responsible by taking care of energy efficiency. The paper addresses the indicators for resources application in hotels, in the line of assessing the nature of energy. The research is consisted of an online survey conducted among managers and department supervisors of three, four and five star hotels in Macedonia. The results point that large number of hotels lack measures to reduce the conventional energy use and replace it with renewable sources of energy. Considering the fact that energy use is a substantial cost factor, the modest and restricted application of geothermal energy, biofuels and photocell lightening is extremely alarming for achieving sustainable tourism development. The study concludes that Macedonian hotels although being fully aware of importance of energy efficiency concept, it is not their managerial priority. Finally, the study recommends that instead of being driven by increased number of tourists regardless the environmental concern, Macedonian hotels should pay attention and become eco-friendly and be focused on applying environmental oriented practices. At the same time, the research poses new challenges that urgently need to be brought to hotel management in the line of achieving sustainable tourism development.