Attitudes to environmental management held by a group of hotel managers in Edinburgh

A postal survey of hotel managers in Edinburgh was designed to test associations between characteristics of the hotel (size, ownership and classification) and attitudes towards environmental management. It was found that there was no association between the characteristics of the hotel and the presence of a written environmental policy. In general, managers felt that the most significant benefits were related to improved public relations and better relationships with their local community. However, hotels with a written policy saw the greatest benefits in relation to financial and marketing benefits, indicating that those managers who had made a commitment to environmental management saw real commercial benefits. This was supported by the results of a binary cluster analysis, which demonstrated the presence of a natural grouping of those hotels with a written environmental policy who, in the majority of cases, held positive attitudes towards the environmental management.