Rogat+-+Memo+-+Abstract

Michelle Rogat

Abstract - state the aims, methods, expected results, and expected significance/merit and circulation

The aim of this thesis is to provide advice and insight to shift the hospitality industry towards sustainable practices and decrease their harmful impact on the environment. The hospitality industry and its resources in this research will be analyzed using the business ecology model, where the different participants are the members/customers, the hospitality businesses themselves, the surrounding businesses that provide daily services to those hospitality businesses, and environmental and sustainable consultants and organizations. (Might be wise to provide a visual for the layout of the business ecology model described here.) This study aims to increase the acceptance, uptake, and success of sustainability initiatives in the hospitality industry by discovering and sharing the reoccurring issues and advice on becoming sustainable that emerge from analyzing that business ecology model by its separate parts and as a whole.

The data needed to achieve this will be collected through qualitative research methods including literature review, phenomenological research through interviews, ethnographic research on the hospitality industry and on sustainability, and an immersive case study at a country club involving sustainability projects. The literature review will be expansive, with literature sections including cultural resistance to change and to sustainability, strategies for 'greening' a business, environmental impacts of the hospitality industry, and the importance of studying and involving the elite of society.

Expected results include the reoccurring advice that will emerge from the research such as the importance of community stakeholder involvement and the importance of overcoming misconceptions and cultural resistance for the success of sustainable projects. As of right now, pilot research has suggested at these results, but more research is needed to confirm this.

The results from this research should shed some significant light on the environmental impact of hospitality and the amount of room there is for improving the sustainability of the hospitality industry. All results will be shared with the professional world of hospitality, through their respective magazines and such, in hopes of gaining recognition for sustainability and to persuade more businesses to take up sustainable practices. The significance of this research in particular is that there hasn't been much research published on the real life scenarios of the attempts to make a business sustainable. Sure, there is a lot that can be learned in the classroom, but what about the situations like failures in the real professional world that nobody wants to talk about. That is the information I am after, the experiences outside of the classroom so that the sustainability community and businesses can learn from others' trials, tribulations, and failures that seem to get hushed and swept under the rug. This research will exemplify why the focus of the sustainability movement should be shifted from creating sustainable possibilities and answers to focusing on getting society to accept and take up those sustainable practices.