Environmental quality index for the Hong Kong hotel sector

In recognition of the growing concern about the likely detrimental environmental impacts of hotel activities, an increasing number of tourism research publications highlight the importance of achieving sustainable tourism and accommodation. However, there is still a scarcity of numerical data which reflect the severity of the negative impacts on the environment created by the operations of hotel owners. This study compiles a database for hotels to design and construct an appropriate environmental impact index for Hong Kong as a first significant step towards creating a 'green' tourism satellite account for the city. It is estimated that the total environmental cost of the local hotel sector has increased by 400% in 16 years to HK$265 million in 2005. Computable or measurable environmental costs were used to establish a composite environmental index and it was discovered that it reached a peak in 2005. In the final analysis, the growth rate of the composite environmental index is compared with that of the value-added index of the local hotel industry and it is found that they generally have the same trend over the study period.