HOS801 Lack of Sustainable Policies in Marriott Hotels Australia Assessment 2 Answer

HOS801: Strategic Management in Tourism and Hospitality

Lack of sustainable policies to reduce Environmental impact in Marriott Hotels Australia
Executive Summary

Lack of sustainable policies in the organisational structure of Marriott Hotel Australia will have a negative impact on the environment. Business administration must need to integrate with the hotel’s environmental policies with other financial and operational policies. This report considers the environmental policies of Marriott hotel as a part of the tourism and hospitality industry and discusses its key recurring problems in maintaining its policies. Sustainability through the policies can be achieved by making proper utilisation of the hotel’s key resources. It is recommended for the hotel to introduce Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in its environmental policy. The hotel is also required to commit towards the corporate stewardship such that it could help it to reduce down the negative impact on its environment.

Introduction

Lack of sustainable practises is a strategic issue which is a critical challenge or fundamental policy question affecting an organisation’s mission, resources, mandates, stakeholders, values, management, process, structure, service, product level mix and environment as well. It is utmost important to identify the strategic issues in organisational periscope, which is one of the most difficult tasks in the planning process. Hospitality and tourism industry is facing several strategic management issues in daily life, and among all one of the key basic issues was selected for analysis. The managers of this industry are forced to juggle several tasks in daily life at any given time. This report analyses key strategic management issue known as lack of sustainable policies to reduce Environmental impact in Marriott Hotels Australia. Certain sustainable practices in the hotel industry are considered as universal for the lodging industry. The key recommendations derived from analysis of these issues were expected to resolve it and provides insight for the future strategic management of the organisation.

About Marriott Hotel Australia

Hospitality and tourism industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world that is characterised by technological continued advancements (Wells, Rismanchi & Aye, 2018). The mentioned advancements have helped to create wonders to improve organisational customers experience and efficiency. However, it has also brought some of the major issues in the hospitality industry, which has affected the way the services are operated. The existing issues create bottlenecks for impeding the expected growth. Marriott Hotel Australia has a parent hotel, Marriott International which is a brand leader offering most powerful portfolio in the tourism and hospitality industry. The hotel chain is having 30 brands and 7000 above properties across 131 countries and territories (Marriott, 2019a). This hotel gives people a way to experience, expand and connect the world. Marriott Hotel Australia has; produced its sustainability and social impact report every year. This is intended to help stakeholders to learn more about the hotel rules and corporate social responsibilities. All the reports produced by the hotel are available publicly to the readers about its natural resource utilisation. However, the policies aligning the profit and environmental sustainability became the key issues of discussion. 

Analysis of sustainable policies

In the year of 2017, Marriott Hotel Australia has utilised new standards of Global Reporting Initiatives which represents the best current global practices for reporting a range of social, economic and environmental impacts (Marriott, 2019b). However, aligning the hotel’s generated profit with environmental sustainability policies are quite dissatisfactory. Being a global giant, it is utmost important to find solutions for integrating better environmental sustainability in day to day operations. There are four such key barriers exist in the environmental policies of Marriott international and overcoming, which the hotel will achieve sustainability and reduce environmental impact. Weiss & Straub (2018) have stated that the implementation of corporate environmental sustainability strategies became standard practice in modern days. There are only 51 companies in Australia which are mandated to report under NGERS (National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Scheme) to showcase their environmental responsibilities (CPA Australia, 2019). At present, 68% of the Australian companies are investing billions of dollars in order to reach the targets of renewable energy procurements (The World Law Group, 2019) (refer to Appendix 1). Almost AUD 25 million has been invested in renewable generation in the year 2018 within the country (Letts, 2019). Though the Marriott Hotel Australia has achieved encouraging progress, global environmental challenges have created more pressure on the strategies of corporate environmental sustainability. Jones, Hillier& Comfort (2016) have stated that many of the global business have not integrated the environmental sustainable policies and procedures for long term decision making. As from the analysis of Marriott international sustainability policy, it can be stated that the existing practices and followed policies are not enough to protect the natural resources in which the current businesses and society depends on (Andeobu, Hettihewa& Wright, 2015). The sustainable policies and practices designed by the Marriott international were not properly aligned with the profit generated by the hotel. 

Barriers in sustainable functions of the hotel

There are four such barriers which are identified as a part of the lack of sustainable policies to reduce the environmental impact in the Marriott international hotel. 

1. Improved environmental sustainability was not valued by the employees and in internal capital allocation decisions (Windsor, 2017). Marriott Hotel Australia is often lacking a mechanism of properly valuing the benefits of managing environmental sustainability in its reports. As an example, the key focus lacking areas include water risks, reduced exposure to energy price volatility, environmental impact on the supply chain and operations.  
2. The key basic goals of financial teams and corporate sustainability teams are not aligned properly. According to Negruşa et al. (2015), divergent priorities represents that the finance teams and sustainability teams do not engage effectively with each other. This, in turn, has resulted that the teams were brought into the project planning very late, and it took too much time to influence the hotel's project design. As a result, they often fail to make an effective case or decisions to the financial decision-makers.  
3. Marriott international is lacking the metrics in order to account for the external environmental costs. It was observed that the hotel does not have clear methods to price other external costs. External environmental costs include the risk of climate change to society. Boluk (2017), has stated that companies are failed to factor above expenses into their respective traditional decision-making process. As a part of strategic management, the Marriott international has not fully cognizant with the real risks and cost associated with investments done over time.    
4. Environmental factors like water scarcity and climate change were not fully integrated with the hotel’s long term business strategy. This, in turn, resulted in missing the opportunities for the companies to improve financial performance along with the environmental improvements in the product lines and processes. 

Strategies to reduce down the gaps

In order to overcome the above barriers, the hotel needs to introduce sustainable development policies and procedures while linking the environmental, social and economic objectives of societies in a balanced way (Friess et al. 2016). The sustainable development policies must need to meet the environmental needs of the present with its manufactured products and services. Sustainable common green practices included are of linen reuse programs and water-conserving fixtures. In order to execute environmental sustainability in the hotel’s policies and procedures, it is important to participate in sustainability programs with the key stakeholders. However, the hotel also needs to focus on consideration of cost override and convenience, along with the presence of green operation. From the report of sustainability, it has; been observed that the link between improved customer satisfaction and environmentally sustainable programs are very weak in compared to the other standard drivers of hotels like room, food, beverage qualities and facilities. Herzallah, Mohamed& El-Aal (2018), has stated that the standard drivers and sustainable programs are expected to maintain as a regular feature for the business. The Marriott international needs to give continuous effort in controlling the cost through the above mentioned sustainable practices while limiting the consumption of energy and water. Resource usage of hotels is still considerable though the conservation efforts were given for many years. 

Conclusion

From the above analysis, it can be concluded that understanding of the management issues will give hospitality managers and hoteliers a clear edge over the competition. It is important for the Marriott international hotel to align and integrate with the finance and corporate environmental responsibilities. Marriott international was well known for its environmental sustainability efforts. This firm’s carbon reduction and energy sustainability goal was proved to be more elusive. The sustainability efforts of the hotels are essential for saving resources and energy. From the whole analysis, it can be concluded that the key element of any programs mentioned in the policies must need to relate with the guest's participation and reaction. Lack of sustainable policies to reduce environmental impact has created serious issues in the hotel’s culture.

Recommendations

It is highly recommended for Marriott Hotel Australia to take further steps to reduce environmental impact on their service, supply chain and products. 

• The hotel needs to raise increased willingness among its stakeholders and should create interest to make them participate in all such environmental sustainability programs. This can be done while offering incentives to the participants like giving loyalty program points for all the participants of environmental programs.
• It is highly recommended for Marriott Hotel Australia to introduce SDGs (Sustainable Development Goals) in its environmental policy in regard to the decrease in energy and water use that can, in turn, helps to cut utility cost for the hotel (WHO, 2019) (refer to Appendix 2). 
• The Marriott international needs to show its commitment towards the corporate stewardship and to be a part of environmental policy it needs to decrease the drain on its surrounding environment.   
• It is also recommended to integrate with the companies policies with concrete government actions. It can be stated that the member country of the hotel will allow in making better integration with the economic, social and environmental goal. 
• The hotel needs to make a linkage with both social and economic policies along with the environmental policies. All the policies must be well understood to the stakeholders and policymakers. The linkage among the policies needs to be strengthened well manner so that it can support sustainable development.  
• The implementation and usage of technological policies will help the Marriott to decouple environmental degradation from the hotel’s economic growth. This strengthening of policy contributes to the investment system and international trade to make sustainable development worldwide.