Abstract:
The hospitality and tourism industry is one of the key economic sectors expected to take a leadership role in transforming the emerging green economy. Climate change impacts on ecological sustainability alongside considerable growth in the industry have raised critical concerns through increased emission of greenhouse gases, water, and energy consumption, and vast volumes of food waste. A rapid move from carbon and material-intensive ways of delivering visitor experiences with an emphasis on stakeholder involvement and ecosystem wellbeing makes tourism a leader in transforming the emerging green economy. This paper aims to determine the role of stakeholder engagement in the adoption of green practices by star-rated hotels along the Kenyan Coast. A cross-sectional survey design was applied in this study. Sample hotels for the study were identified using stratified random selection. Stratification of management tiers for selecting general managers and heads of sections was applied. Data from heads of sections were obtained using a semi-structured questionnaire while semi-structured interview schedule was used for general managers. Analysis of data included descriptive statistics in determining the frequencies, means, standard deviations, and percentages for each survey item. One sample t-test was used to test the statistical significance of Likert scale responses. Hypothesis testing was conducted using a multiple linear regression model. Qualitative data were analyzed using thematic analysis. The findings indicated that stakeholders’ engagement contributes significantly to the adoption of green practices (p=≤0.000≤0.05). Stakeholder’ engagement was also revealed as a key predictor of adoption of green practices in star rated hotels (β= .760, P - value<0.05). The study concluded that stakeholders’ engagement provide new ideas, define performance indicators for monitoring, auditing, comparison, and reporting green practices adopted by the star-rated hotels. The study recommended that hotel managers, hotel associations, and government agencies need to enhance green practices by strengthening the capacity of existing institutions to partner and collaborate with key stakeholders, mobilize green climate funds, develop and review curricula, training resources, and short courses in hospitality, tourism, and environmental studies.
