Application of 5R’s of Sustainability in Ho...

Application of 5R’s of Sustainability in Hotel Industry: A Case Study of Rajasthan, India

Author Name : Dr. Pooja Arya

ABSTRACT

The hotel industry is shifting its perspective towards eco-friendly practices and designing and implementing applications that are environmentally-friendly. However, hotels' consideration of refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle, and repurpose (5R’s of environmental sustainability) is not abundant in their policies. The present paper examines the implementation of the 5R’s of sustainability in the hotel industry in a selected area of Rajasthan. Several star-category properties, including five-, four-, and three-star hotels, have been included in the study, which determines environmental protection through their operations.According to a thorough review of the literature, no research on the application of 5R’s in five-star, four-star, and three-star hotels in the state of Rajasthan has been done thus far on this scale using large data sets. As per the Ministry of Tourism, Rajasthan, there are around 1400 registered hotels in the region. At the same time, Rajasthan is known for its magnificent beauty, wildlife, natural resources, and historical and heritage places as well, which attract tourists from worldwide. Rapid growth of the hotel industry increases the demand for natural resources like water and electricity while generating waste, which has created negative consequences for the environment. Hoteliers can minimise these effects with the implementation of 5R’s that promote the following: refusing the necessary things at the very first time, reusing the material with creativity, reducing the usage of water, electricity, etc., recycling the material and repurposing the things that cannot be recycled. This will reduce the dependency on nature and mitigate the environmental impact.

Key words: Environmentally-friendly, Sustainability, Nature.