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Exploring research on water-saving measures applied to the hotel sector. A critical systematic review

April 2024
International Journal of Hospitality Management 120(12):103747

DOI:10.1016/j.ijhm.2024.103747

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Ariadna Gabarda-Mallorquí

University of the Balearic Islands

Bartolome Deya Tortella

University of the Balearic Islands

Dolores Tirado

University of the Balearic Islands

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International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

nc/4.0/).

Exploring research on water-saving measures applied to the hotel sector. A

critical systematic review

Ariadna Gabarda-Mallorquí

, Bartolom´

e Dey´

, Dolores Tirado

Department of Applied Economics, University of the Balearic Islands, Crta. Valldemossa, km. 7.5, Palma, Balearic Islands 07122, Spain

Department of Business Economics, University of the Balearic Islands, Crta. Valldemossa, km. 7.5, Palma, Balearic Islands 07122, Spain

ARTICLE INFO

Keywords:

Review

Water

Saving

Hotel

Scopus

Web of Science

ABSTRACT

Climate change and tourist development are increasing the frequency and severity of water stress situations. This

study aims to summarize the research ndings in articles exploring water-saving measures applied in hotels.

Based on the Cochrane protocol, a systematic review was conducted for the period 2000–2020. Several searches

were run to select 39 articles and a coding system was built to classify the ndings. Results point out that low cost

are the most widely applied measures, probably because have shorter payback periods. However, reclaimed

water is one of the most explored measures by academic literature. Different research gaps have been identied.

First, no articles have explored the impact of the introduction of water-saving actions on hotels’ competitiveness.

Secondly, there is a lack of deeper exploration of stakeholders’ roles and contributions to water-saving man-

agement. Finally, it would also be important to analyse to what extent new forms in hotel management inuence

decision-making.

1. Introduction

Sustainable water management constitutes an essential issue to

socioenvironmental development, especially in regions where water is a

scarce natural resource and highly disputed by multiple end-users

(G¨

ossling et al., 2012). Furthermore, the droughts induced by climate

change, demographic pressure, and population water consumption

behaviour will lead to huge water management challenges. Given the

absolute relevance of water as a basic resource for productive and

non-productive uses, social conicts between end-users are expected to

increase during periods of water stress. In this sense, relevant reports in

the eld estimate that more than 2 billion people live in highly

water-stressed countries, and this gure is expected to grow shortly

(Caretta et al., 2022). In addition, the effects of climate change will

probably spread the water stress problem to countries that have not

previously experienced it (Lehmann, 2019). The alteration in the dy-

namics of rainfall has caused drought and ood situations to become

more frequent, increasing the problems of water storage and water

availability (Hadjikakou et al., 2013; Liu et al., 2017).

Tourism is known to be a large water consumer (Cole, 2012), with

severe environmental and social impacts on natural resources. In fact,

the effects on water resources linked to tourist activities have been

identied. In that sense, tourism affects the overall availability of

freshwaters and increases the level of pollution and contamination of

aquatic and marine ecosystems (Stonich, 1998). This fact is even more

relevant if we consider the exponential growth observed in the tourism

sector during the last decades. According to the World Tourism Orga-

nization, tourism international arrivals have grown from 436 million

tourists in 1999–1466 million in 2019 (236.2% increment), representing

6.9% of the World Balance of Payments (UNWTO, 2022). This signi-

cant rapid growth has directly increased in water stress situations. Thus,

the awareness of the necessity of saving water and the search for

maximum efciency in water use and consumption must therefore

become a key issue in designing the strategies of tourist destinations.

One of the largest water consumers not only among the different

tourist lodging options, as stated by Hamele and Eckardt (2006) but also

within the entire tourism industry (G¨

ossling et al., 2012), is the hotel

sector. Despite the different determinants related to the size, star rating,

or specic water services, some studies estimate that, on average, water

consumption in hotels ranges from 216 litres per guest night (hereinafter

L/g.n.) to 920, with an average of 686 L/g.n., according to a study

compiling data from 30 published articles from different geographical

contexts (Alhudaithi et al., 2022). It is important to note that these

gures are signicantly higher compared with the global average of

* Corresponding author.

E-mail addresses: ariadna.gabarda@uib.es (A. Gabarda-Mallorquí), tolo.deya@uib.es (B. Dey´

a), dolores.tirado@uib.es (D. Tirado).

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

International Journal of Hospitality Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ijhm

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhm.2024.103747

Received 7 February 2023; Received in revised form 19 February 2024; Accepted 9 April 2024

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

160 L per capita and day of domestic water use estimated by G¨

ossling

et al. (2012). Additionally, it is important to point out that, despite the

increase in new accommodation options (i.e., rental properties), hotels

still constitute the most popular lodging option for tourists (UNWTO,

2022). Thus, the collaboration and cooperation of the hotel sector is

indeed a key issue in achieving higher sustainable water management in

tourism destinations. The impact of this sector on water resources can be

partially mitigated by achieving the highest levels of water-saving ef-

ciency, considering restructuring, and even reducing hotel services that

consume water intensively. The hotel sector is aware of this and has

developed numerous strategies to ensure tourists’ water needs without

compromising the environment (Gabarda-Mallorquí et al., 2020).

Several measures to save water have been extensively applied to reach

maximum efciency in water use and consumption (Styles et al., 2015),

understood as those mechanisms, devices, or tools aimed at reducing the

pressure over water resources by reducing water consumption and/or by

additionally using other non-conventional resources such as rainwater

or reclaimed water. However, while it is true that the industry must be

an active change-maker in saving water, other stakeholders need to be

included in the promotion, management, regulation and boosting of any

effort to reduce water consumption. As pointed out by Cole (2012),

owners, local organizations and public administrators, among so many

others, need to be considered to build a proper partnership to deal with

the climate-based adaption process. From a Tourism-based political

ecology approach proposed by Stonich (1998), tourism activities need to

be understood as an integrated system in which several social actors play

an important role in reducing water consumption and transitioning to

sustainable development.

During the last decade, a signicant number of academic papers have

explored the measures applied to save water in hotels in tourist desti-

nations dealing with water scarcity. Since water-saving strategies are

covered by a wide range of disciplines, articles have been published in

journals from various elds including environmental studies, geogra-

phy, and leisure and tourism studies. Due to this multidisciplinarity,

research on water-saving actions needs a common scheme that allows

the main ndings to be systemised and facilitates the transfer of scien-

tic knowledge to hotel practitioners and policymakers through a

concise summary of the state of the art. Thus, a systematic review must

be conducted to analyse the water-saving measures applied in the hotel

sector. Two previous literature reviews were published by Warren and

Becken (2017) and by Antonova, Ruiz-Rosa and Mendoza-Jim´

enez

(2021). The former is aimed at exploring water and energy-saving ac-

tions applied in the lodging industry from 1987 to 2015 including 110

peer-reviewed articles. The authors pointed out that energy is much

more explored and that “more research is required to identify savings

opportunities for water” (Warren and Becken, 2017, p. 298). On the

other hand, Antonova et al. (2021) reviewed meticulously water use and

consumption in the hotel industry between 2000 and 2019. The authors

reviewed 58 articles, of which six were focused on the study of

water-saving actions applied to hotels.

In that sense, this review is intended to update, rstly, Warren and

Becken’s study, focusing only on hotels and water-saving measures. It

must be noted that hotels are usually the most frequent option chosen by

tourists and constitute the most important lodging offer at many tourist

destinations. Thus, the impact of the introduction of water-saving

measures at hotels will be signicantly higher compared with other

lodging options. Moreover, hotel water management practices differ

from other types of tourist accommodations, so obtaining reliable data

on the amount of saved water in establishments other than hotels is

challenging. In addition to the fact that the literature focused on water-

saving measures is less frequent than that focused on energy savings,

both resources (water and energy) are substantially different in terms of

property rights, market structure, prices, and scarcity of the resource

itself, which highly affect the analysis of the predictors explaining the

implementation of water-saving actions, the effects in carrying them

out, and the stakeholders who are directly implied in the

implementation and management processes. Moreover, the launching of

the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals in 2015 has resulted

in the production of academic articles providing solutions and/or ana-

lysing actions to save water in the tourism sector.

Secondly, having in mind that the study published by Antonova et al.

(2021) meticulously reviews water use and consumption in the hotel

industry, the authors state that six articles from 58 were focused on good

practices in water management, such as “the implementation of

eco-initiatives related to water, water-saving measures, etc., in hotels”

(ibid, p. 636). This review is intended to complement and extend the

work of Antonova et al. and update the excellent research performed by

the authors, by focusing specically on water-saving practices in hotels.

Thus, this study aims to provide a more detailed analysis of the explored

measures focusing also on the predictors that could explain their

implementation and the effects related to it, and the stakeholders

involved in water saving as the study objects.

All in all, this review aims to build the state of the art on the

water-saving actions carried out in the hotel sector that have been

the research object in academic articles published between 2000

and 2020. Moreover, this review is intended to establish the “who”,

“how”, “when” and “where” of selected papers. Four research

questions were formulated based on this goal:

1. Which water-saving practices, applied to the hotel sector, have been

explored within academia?

2. What are the main research ndings related to the implementation of

water-saving actions?

3. Which are the stakeholders identied as key actors involved in

water-saving measures implementation and management?

4. What are the main gaps to be potentially lled by research from any

scientic eld?

The results of the paper are structured according to the four

mentioned research gaps and provided in order to ll them.

2. Methodology

For this study, the systematic literature review methodology was

chosen over other options such as narrative, bibliometric, or meta-

analysis approaches. This decision was based on the advantages high-

lighted by Antonova et al. (2021) who suggest that a systematic review

of literature is best when the research topic is fragmented. Additionally,

Donthu et al. (2021) point out that this methodology is the most

appropriate for a specic review scope with a small database that can be

manually reviewed. This is in line with the study’s goal and the number

of records identied. To be more specic, this study has been conducted

through a metasummary-based approach since it aims to extract and

describe the main ndings of selected papers by coding segments as

summarized thematic statements (Y. Xiao and Watson, 2019).

The methods used in this review are linked to the Cochrane protocol

which covers every explicit step taken to guarantee scientic rigour,

transferability, and replicability (Boaz et al., 2002). According to Pah-

levan-Sharif et al. (2019), the importance of following this type of

protocol is essential to minimize possible interpretation biases and to

produce reliable (and less subjective) evaluations of the body of

knowledge. They also point out that the protocol can be used by tourism

scholars since it represents one of the most complete checklists to assess

current and future trends in any eld. In their systematic review of

systematic reviews in tourism, only ve revisions (of 192 reviews) fol-

lowed this protocol (Pahlevan-Sharif et al., 2019). The authors of this

review have worked closely together to ensure accuracy and high

quality in every step of the process proposed by Xiao and Watson (2019).

They have carefully designed criteria, selected articles, and extracted

data to minimize errors. Each author’s specic background has helped to

prevent misunderstandings in terminology and ensure proper treatment

of key concepts. During the rst review stage, the authors manually

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

reviewed the abstracts of identied papers without any software sup-

port. Their broad experience in the academic eld of tourism and water

management has greatly reduced the likelihood of misunderstandings.

2.1. Eligibility criteria and information sources

The key components of this study, according to the Population-

Intervention-Comparison-Outcome approach (Thomas et al., 2021),

were hotels as the main Population; water-saving measures as the

principal Intervention; and a summary of the scientic approaches and

main gaps in the literature as the Outcome. This review did not focus on

any Comparison exercise. Papers published between 01/01/2000 and

31/12/2020 were analysed. The choice of the last two decades is

because research on saving water processes in the tourism sector has

increased since 2015, probably due to the launching of the United Na-

tions’ Sustainable Development Goals. The authors of this review were

able to verify how the literature focused on water-saving measures in

hotels was quite recent. Moreover, it should be noted that water stress

situations are challenging tourist destinations. During the 21st century,

climate change effects (Liu et al., 2017), the increasing population

(World Bank Group, 2021), the hypermobility in tourism and the

growing number of visitors (G¨

ossling et al., 2012) among others, have

resulted in recurrent and severe periods of water scarcity (United Na-

tions World Water Assessment Programme, 2018). The concern among

academics related to this issue has steadily materialized in an increasing

number of publications aimed at providing solutions and advancing

knowledge in the eld.

The type of academic source to be included in this review was

dened as published journal articles, excluding books, book chapters,

proceedings, or any other source. Journal articles are known to be

considered accessible and validated knowledge (Vrontis et al., 2021).

The search process was conducted using two extensive databases widely

accepted by the scientic community (Pranckut˙

e, 2021), and which

have already been used in other similar reviews (Antonova et al., 2021):

Elsevier’s Scopus and Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science (hereinafter

WoS). As for the language, it is known that English is perceived as the

universal language in science (Morrison et al., 2012). In that sense,

English was the only language included in the search of this review since

the exclusion of non-English-language papers tends to not affect the

conclusions of systematic reviews (Nussbaumer-Streit et al., 2020).

Although the paper’s abstract and keywords were included in English,

which is a usual practice (Antonova et al., 2021), non-English-language

manuscripts were automatically excluded from this review.

2.2. Search strategy and data items

Three main conceptual constructs structured the targeted search

parameters: (1) water as a resource, (2) processes to reduce water con-

sumption, such as saving, conservation and reduction, and (3) the hotel

sector, with words such as hotel, tourist, accommodation, lodging, hospi-

tality and guest. These three components formed the variables according

to which data were sought and selected (Table 1). Taking the main

keywords, potential word formations were proposed to build the nal

search strings: water, sav*, conservat*, reduc*, hotel*, tourist*, accom-

modat*, lodg*, hospitality, and guest*.

Once keywords and word formations were dened, the search pro-

cess was executed through two main steps. Since the rst step consisted

of looking for matches in the abstract-based eld and the second step

looked for the string broadly in the topic-based eld, several searching

combinations were tested according to strategies 1–6 specied in

Table 1

Main conceptual constructs, potential word formations and search strings used.

Concepts Potential word formations Searching form

water water water

saving saving save saved sav*

conservation conservation conservative conservating conservat*

reduction reduction reduce reduced reduc*

hotel hotel hotels hotel*

tourist tourist touristic tourists tourist*

accommodation accommodation accommodate accommodating accommodat*

lodging lodging lodge lodg*

hospitality hospitality hospitality

guest guest guests guest*

Table 2

Searching strategies conducted in Scopus and WoS databases.

Strategy Database 1st step string 1st step

results

2nd step string Global

results

#1 Scopus water AND (sav

* OR conservat*

OR reduc*) AND

(hotel* OR

hospitality OR

(tourist* AND

(accommodat*)

OR (lodg*)) OR

guest*)

961 - 961

#2 Scopus water AND (sav

* OR conservat*

OR reduc*)

524,410 (hotel* OR

hospitality OR

(tourist* AND

(accommodat

*) OR (lodg*))

OR guest*)

2098

#3 Scopus water AND

(hotel* OR

hospitality OR

(tourist* AND

(accommodat

*) OR (lodg*))

OR guest*)

7371 (sav* OR

conservat*

OR reduc*)

2336

#4 WoS water AND (sav

* OR conservat*

OR reduc*) AND

(hotel* OR

hospitality OR

(tourist* AND

(accommodat*)

OR (lodg*)) OR

guest*)

961 - 961

#5 WoS water AND (sav

* OR conservat*

OR reduc*)

420,602 (hotel* OR

hospitality OR

(tourist* AND

(accommodat

*) OR (lodg*))

OR guest*)

1141

#6 WoS water AND

(hotel* OR

hospitality OR

(tourist* AND

(accommodat

*) OR (lodg*))

OR guest*)

7228 (sav* OR

conservat*

OR reduc*)

1199

The search was run on 22nd December 2021.

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

Table 2. After running the six search strategies, numbers #3 and #6

were the most convenient since they covered the highest number of

articles. Strategies #3 and #6 allowed the search to be restricted to

tourism-based studies in the rst step and to be further constrained by

the water-saving-based concepts in the second step. The search of the

Scopus database was executed using the “Article Title, Abstract, Key-

words” eld in the rst step and the “Within the text” eld in the second.

The search of WoS was based on entering a search string into the “Ab-

stract” eld in the rst step and the “Topic” eld in the second.

The number of papers selected in this phase was 3535 (2336 in

Scopus and 1199 in WoS). After searching through both databases, it

was necessary to detect and remove duplicates. The total number of

articles selected after the removal of duplicates was 2829 (2336 articles

from Scopus as the primary database and 493 new references from

WoS). Fig. 1 shows the process used to search, screen, and select full

texts.

2.3. Selection and data collection processes

After the two-step search had been conducted, validation tasks had

to be completed to ensure that the selected articles were appropriate for

inclusion. The parameters by which articles were excluded were based

on the following criteria: (1) articles focusing on Tourist Destinations in

a broader sense (n=42); (2) articles focusing on Other Tourist Accom-

modations (n=11); (3) guest-centred articles exploring Guest Environ-

mental Behaviour (n=35); (4) hotel-based articles focusing mainly on

Water Quality (n=191); (5) tourism-based articles analysing water

consumption reduction but through General Environmental Schemes

(n=185); (6) articles exploring Water Use and Consumption in hotels

(n=32); (7) Non-Tourism based articles (n=52); (8) articles selected as a

result of a Pure Word Coincidence (n=2237); and (9) Systematic Re-

views (n=2). Criteria “Pure Word Coincidence” needs further explana-

tion since the number of records excluded is noteworthy. Since the logic

sequences, used to search potential articles to be included in this review,

include words related to “water” and “guests”, the query returns papers

mostly linked to academic elds such as chemistry or medicine, among

others. In this sense, the word guest refers to concepts related to host-

guest molecular elements. As for the last criteria, it’s important to

note that reviews, such as those published by Warren and Becken (2017)

and Antonova et al. (2021), were not included as they don’t specically

analyse water-saving measures implemented in hotels per se. Instead, as

secondary literature sources, they only provide summaries of ndings

from previous studies.

The exclusion of articles was executed by accurately analysing their

abstracts and applying the previously mentioned eligibility criteria. The

authors reviewed 2829 abstracts. Through an initial discussion internal

meeting, the research team analysed the results of the rst-round review

and classied the articles. The nal number of records included in this

review was 42. These articles were gathered from ofcial sources. In

cases where the authors’ university databases did not have full access to

a journal, interlibrary loans were taken from other national universities.

If the article still could not be accessed, the authors of the selected article

were contacted directly and asked for the required manuscript. A second

review round was conducted by the team through in-depth reading of

the full texts of the selected articles. Nine articles were removed from

this review at this stage because they did not t the purpose of this study

(n=1), were not academic articles (n=1) or were not written in English

(n=7), although the abstracts were written in English and so included

during the screening stage, a recurrent fact when articles are submitted

to journals (Antonova et al., 2021). Finally, 33 full texts were included in

the qualitative analysis.

2.4. Developing the coding system

The full texts of 33 articles were analysed through a process of

inductive approximation in which the authors built a code system using

MaxQDA© software. Since the authors are familiar with the scientic

literature in this eld, the code system was created using a paraphrasing

tool to identify relevant ideas and paragraphs (Gizzi and R¨

adiker, 2021).

During the rst attempt to code the text, a complex hierarchical code

classication was created from the paraphrased texts. To ensure con-

sistency and effectiveness in analysing data, the code system was reor-

ganised into more concise groups by joining and reorganising sub-codes.

Ultimately, the three top-level codes were (1) water-saving measures,

(2) research ndings, and (3) stakeholders mentioned and/or analysed

(Table 3). The rst code was used to identify the water-saving measures,

actions and/or strategies analysed by the articles. The second code was

created to explore the ndings of each article. The third code identied

the stakeholders that were directly involved in each study or mentioned

as essential actors in the management, promotion and/or

Fig. 1. The ow chart. Authors’ source, adapted from Moher et al# (2009).

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

implementation of the water-saving measure(s) analysed. It should be

noted that several segments within a sole paper could be coded as

belonging to the same category. The number of documents given in

related gures in the results section could thus be higher than the

number of articles included in this review (33).

A categorical matrix was also created which included ve quantita-

tive variables for each paper, namely (1) the author’s scientic disci-

pline, (2) the journal’s eld, (3) the research methodology used, (4) the

publishing year, and (5) the case study (by country). The UNESCO

nomenclature for elds of science and technology was used to classify

the author’s scientic prole and the journal’s eld for each article,

allowing both items to be unied. Research methodology here refers to

the main methodological process conducted in each article, dened as

quantitative, qualitative and/or mixed methods. Concerning variable

(5), it should be noted that an article can explore one or more case

studies.

3. Results

3.1. Categorical analysis overview

To establish a clear picture of the topic, a brief quantitative

description is presented below, considering the authorship, the method,

the case study, and the journal eld and publishing year. in the Ap-

pendix will help the reader to better understand the gures presented in

this section.

3.2. About the authorship

A total of 88 researchers (104 authors are referenced since 12 of

them contributed to more than one paper) participated in the reviewed

papers. According to the UNESCO nomenclature, 38 of the authors had a

technological background (corresponding to the category 2.7 Environ-

mental engineering from the UNESCO classication), 27 had an economic

sciences background (5.2 Economics and Business), and 14 had a

geography-linked background (5.7 Social geography). Regarding the rest,

six of them worked in the architectural eld (6.4 Architectural design),

two in chemistry (1.4 Chemical Sciences) and one in agricultural sciences

(4.1 Agricultural, Forestry and Fisheries). Most authors were afliated

with universities (73), although some represented research centres (8),

private for-prot entities (6), and public non-prot entities (1).

3.3. About the research method

Most of the articles used quantitative methods (75.7%), while the

rest were based on qualitative and/or mixed methodological techniques

(12.1% and 12.1% respectively). Quantitative approaches are thus the

methods most frequently used to explore water-saving measures in the

hotel sector. The quantitative approach is based on positivism and aims

to measure and analyse variables to represent the truth (Sale et al.,

2002). This is the main purpose of articles aiming to test new

water-saving technologies (Atanasova et al., 2017; Chai et al., 2013;

Gattringer et al., 2016), calculate water savings (Abdallah and Al

Antary, 2020; Klontza et al., 2016), or estimate economic savings (Gatt

and Schranz, 2015; Styles et al., 2015). Conversely, qualitative research

attempts to elucidate reality’s complexity by employing an interpreta-

tive approach. From the qualitative point of view, there are multiple

truths because reality is a social construct. This is the case in selected

articles exploring the motivations and/or obstacles to implementing

water-saving measures (Alonso, 2008), the experience of drought

(Brand˜

ao et al., 2018; Dinar`

es and Saurí, 2015) or the perception of risk

Table 3

The three top-level codes system.

Water-saving measures Research ndings Stakeholders

Use of non-conventional

water resources

Water-saving

measures

implementation

predictors

Hotel sector

Rainwater harvesting Business

strategical factors

Pilot hotels

Use of recycled/

reclaimed water

Environmental

awareness factors

Hotel competition

In-room devices Legal factors Hotel managers

Use of dual ush toilets

and/or limited lling

systems

Technical factors Public administration

Replacement of regular

taps and/or shower

heads with water-

saving devices

Socio-cultural

factors

Other services

Replacement of

bathtubs with shower

bases

Infrastructural

factors

Supply-licensed

companies

Water-efcient awareness Economic factors Environmental

consultancy

services

Signs encouraging

guests to use less water

Water-saving

measures

implementation

effects

Water-saving training

to employees

Normative

compliance

General water management Economic/

nancial analysis

Leakage control Environmental

impacts

quantication

Pressure reduction of

the main hotel’s water

supply

Water-saving

efciency

assessment

Replacement of linen

not daily

Detailed control

consumption through

submeters

Water prices, taxation

and/or licenses

Water-efcient machinery

Replacement of

washing machines with

water-efcient

programs

Replacement of HVAC

with water-efcient

devices

Coffee machines with

water recirculation

system

Actions applied in green

zones

Irrigation with water-

efcient technologies

Gardens with low

water-requirement

vegetation

Replacement of green

zones with pavements

Actions applied in pools

Pool lling with sea

water

Pool water-efcient

ltering and cleaning

Pool covering to avoid

evaporation

Unspecic water-saving

measure and/or general

overview

The three subcodes include the following actions: replacement of washing

machines and/or dishwashers for “Replacement of washing machines with

water-efcient programs”; replacement of Heating, Ventilating and Air Condi-

tioning systems with water-efcient programs for “Replacement of HVAC with

water-efcient devices”; and coffee machines with water-efcient mechanisms

for “Coffee machines with water recirculation system”.

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

(ElShafei, 2020) as predictors which explain the implementation of

water-saving measures.

3.4. About the case study

About the “where” of the selected articles, most selected articles

focused on Spain (12 documents, 36.3%), followed by Australia, Brazil,

Egypt, Greece, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Turkey (two documents for

each). Thus, Spain was the location of the highest number of case studies

discussed. Spain is a well-known Mediterranean tourist destination, and

its water resources are under high pressure, especially along the Medi-

terranean coast and on the Canary Islands. This has undoubtedly led to

the extended and in-depth research conducted by Spanish universities

and research centres aiming to shed new light on the eld of water-

saving in the tourism sector.

3.5. About the journal eld and the publishing year

According to UNESCO denitions, a major proportion of the articles

were published in journals covering technological sciences (48.4%) and

economic sciences (39.3%). Other journals relevant to this topic covered

disciplines such as geography (9%), and medical sciences (3%). The

earliest selected articles were published in 2008, despite this review

searching for papers published from 2000 onwards. However, 79% of

the papers were published between 2013 and 2020. During this period,

two years seem to have been the most prolic: nine selected papers were

published in 2016 and 2019 (ve and four papers respectively).

3.6. Water-saving measures

To respond to the rst research question, (RQ1) Which water-saving

practices, applied to the hotel sector, have been explored within

academia?, water-saving measures were classied into seven sub-codes

according to where they were implemented and/or their nature, and an

extra sub-code was used to identify those articles which aimed to explore

water-saving measures through a general overview (Table 4). As

mentioned previously, several sub-codes could be identied within the

same article.

By observing the number of different documents in each of the

general groups, most papers explore measures related to the use of non-

conventional water resources (mentioned in 17 different articles), gen-

eral water management actions (in 13 articles), and in-room mecha-

nisms and devices aimed at reducing water consumption in hotel

bathrooms (in 12 articles). The measures less mentioned included those

applied to gardens and green zones (seven articles), water-efciency

awareness measures (six articles), water-efcient machinery replace-

ment (six articles), actions placed in swimming pools (ve articles), and

unspecic water-saving measures and/or general overviews (six arti-

cles). The use of reclaimed water was the action that appeared most

frequently in the selected documents (15 articles) followed by the

replacement of regular taps and/or shower heads with water-saving

devices (12 articles) and the use of dual-ush toilets and/or limited

lling systems (10 articles). On the other hand, the less-mentioned

water-saving actions included the use of coffee machines with water

recirculation systems, the installation of shower bases to replace bath-

tubs, the replacement of HVAC with water-efcient devices, the

replacement of green zones with pavements, and the pool covering to

avoid evaporation (mentioned in one document each).

3.7. About the main research ndings of selected articles

To respond to the second research question (RQ2), the second top-

level code was related to the ndings of each article when analysing

one or more water-saving actions. Considering that a water-saving ac-

tion is the research object, two main issues can be explored. The rst is

regarding the motivations (or the lack of) behind water-saving actions

implementation from decision-makers, in this case, hotel managers or

people in charge. This approach means exploring which factors can

explain the reasons behind the implementation of water-saving actions,

so compile the ex-ante elements understood as predictors. These ex-ante

factors have been classied into seven groups: (1) business strategical

factors, including motivations linked to the improvement of the com-

pany’s green image; (2) environmental awareness factors, or those ele-

ments regarding the desire to minimize environmental impacts or linked

to the environmental consciousness of the hotel decision-maker; (3)

legal factors, meaning that water-saving actions have been applied to

comply with regulations; (4) technical factors, including factors in re-

gard to the technical capacity and knowledge to apply water-saving

actions; (5) socio-cultural factors, when water-stress experience or the

perception of potential drought periods are analysed as potential pre-

dictors; (6) infrastructural factors when elements related to hotel

building characteristics (size, location) have potentially facilitated the

Table 4

Number of documents exploring each water-saving measure.

Number of

documents

Reference number

1. Use of non-conventional water

resources

17*

Rainwater harvesting 5 1, 6, 19, 20, 28

Use of recycled/reclaimed

water

15 4, 6, 8, 10, 11, 13, 14,

20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28,

29, 31

2. In-room devices 12*

Use of dual ush toilets and/or

limited lling systems

10 6, 7, 17, 19, 20, 21,

28, 29, 30, 33,

Replacement of regular taps

and/or shower heads with

water-saving devices

12 6, 7, 12, 14, 17, 19,

20, 21, 28, 29, 30, 33

Replacement of bathtubs with

shower bases

1 19

3. Water-efcient awareness 6*

Signs encouraging guests to

use less water

6 6, 17, 19, 28, 30, 33

Water-saving training to

employees

3 17, 19, 28

4. General water management 13*

Leakage control 5 6, 19, 20, 29, 30

Pressure reduction of the main

hotel’s water supply

2 20, 17

Replacement of linen not daily 4 6, 17, 19, 30

Detailed control consumption

through submeters

5 12, 14, 19, 20, 30

Water prices, taxation and/or

licenses

5 15, 16, 27, 32, 33

5. Water-efcient machinery 6*

Replacement of washing

machines with water-efcient

programs

6 6, 17, 19, 20, 30, 33

Replacement of HVAC with

water-efcient devices

1 30

Coffee machines with water

recirculation system

1 17

6. Actions applied in green zones 7*

Irrigation with water-efcient

technologies

6 6, 17, 19, 20, 29, 33

Gardens with low water-

requirement vegetation

4 19, 20, 29, 33

Replacement of green zones

with pavements

1 28

7. Actions applied in pools 5*

Pool lling with sea water 2 6, 19

Pool water-efcient ltering

and cleaning

3 17, 28, 30

Pool covering to avoid

evaporation

1 19

8. Unspecic water-saving measure

and/or general overview

6 2, 3, 5, 9, 18, 25

Number of different documents, not the sum of documents in each group

item.

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

implementation of water-saving measures; and (7) economic factors,

mainly when a water-saving action have been applied due to cost

reduction willingness.

Secondly, a water-saving action can be analysed to elucidate the

main effects of applying it. Thus, the consequences of implementing a

measure, as ex-post elements, have been grouped into four typologies:

(1) normative compliance, when after testing a water-saving action

authors explored if water quality meets normative standards (this is

fundamentally linked to the production of reclaimed water); (2) eco-

nomic/nancial analysis, when the cost savings or the payback period of

implementing a measure is quantied; (3) environmental impacts

identication, including those papers trying to quantify the environ-

mental impacts in applying water-saving actions; and (4) water-saving

efciency assessment, when the papers are trying to elucidate the po-

tential water volume saved. Bearing this in mind, 11 sub-codes (ac-

cording to the seven ex-ante and four ex-post elements previously

mentioned) have been created. It should be noted that more than one

sub-code could be identied in the same article (Table 5).

The two items most explored were the testing of water-saving ef-

ciency (ex-post), mentioned in 21 documents, and infrastructural factors

(ex-ante), mentioned in 11 documents. By contrast, the less-explored

items were those relating to environmental impacts as a proven effect

when one or more water-saving actions were applied (mentioned in one

document). This fact points out that elucidating which infrastructural

factors allow the implementation of water-saving actions have attract

the attention of researchers. In this sense, infrastructural characteristics

can be considered one of the rst hurdle to address. Similarly, the same

can be applied when ex-post elements are considered. Water-saving ef-

ciency assessment factor is the most explored implementation effect in

articles explored. Trying to shed new light on the volume of water saved

once a measure has been applied, research has paid attention in deter-

mining the potentiality of water-saving actions. Thus, exploring both

elements, as the most frequently mentioned in academic papers, point

out to which are the priorities for academics to solve potential dif-

culties in applying measures by hotel practitioners.

When discussing each water-saving measure assessed and nding

established patterns in the research ndings, most of the water-saving

actions were explored through a double-focus analysis of ex-ante and

ex-post factors (Fig. 2). Bearing this in mind, infrastructural and eco-

nomic factors were the ex-ante factors most often discussed when

explaining the implementation of the most water-saving actions while

water-saving efciency assessment was the most analysed ex-post factor

in terms of the effects of applying the majority of water-saving measures.

In general terms, the results agreed in some cases. In articles ana-

lysing ex-ante factors, most of the water-saving measures discussed

involved infrastructural and/or economic factors as common predictors.

As expected, the implementation of “Water prices, taxation and/or li-

cences” measures is not explained by infrastructural issues, since this

measure doesn’t involve any building adaptation. In the same vein,

“Replacement of green zones with pavements” measures are not deter-

mined by any economic predictor, as the results point out. Legal re-

quirements are also common predictors and usually present similar

results in the articles analysed. Specically, in-room measures such as

the use of dual ush toilets, or the replacement of regular taps and/or

shower heads with water-saving devices, are being applied due to the

replacement of outdated facilities with new products existing in the

market which already incorporate water-saving mechanisms (Torres--

Bagur et al., 2019). Thus, in this sense, legal frameworks seem to be a

predictor of the implementation of water-saving actions. Socio-cultural

factors are another ex-ante element that affects the level of imple-

mentation of most of the applied measures. In particular, the experience

of drought and the associated perception of the risk of drought are

factors that could lead managers to intervene to minimise potential

damages (Brand˜

ao et al., 2018; Dinar`

es and Saurí, 2015; ElShafei,

2020). Business strategy factors have been found to be a common pre-

dictor in most of the measures applied, except “Water prices, taxation

and/or licenses” and “Replacement of HVAC with water-efcient de-

vices”. In the articles focused on this issue, marketing and corporate

image improvement were frequently found to be ex-ante factors that

explained the implementation level of any water-saving action (Dinar`

and Saurí, 2015; Llaus`

as et al., 2020).

About the ex-post factors, there was clear agreement on the efciency

of the low-cost interventions assessed in the articles. Actions with low

investment costs and/or short payback periods were shown to be highly

efcient because they can signicantly reduce water consumption. Low-

cost mechanisms were proven to be important water-savers in all the

articles which discuss them (Barber´

an et al., 2013; Gatt and Schranz,

2015; Klontza et al., 2016; Styles et al., 2015). Regarding water con-

sumption and economic cost reduction in applying water-saving actions,

several articles aimed at quantifying these two specic indicators. For

the rst, applying rainwater harvesting actions can potentially reduce,

depending on the case study analysed, 26.57% (Klontza et al., 2016) or

60% (Abdallah and Al Antary, 2020) in total water consumption from

the supply network, minimizing the pressure over conventional water

resources and also decreasing reliance on public drinking water. The use

of reclaimed water is also signicant: depending on its characteristics, a

hotel can reuse a signicant volume of reclaimed water, ranging from

10,250 to 30,750 m

annually (Hocaoglu, 2017). For the second indi-

cator, in a Jordanian case study, a rainwater harvesting system saved

JD1035,408 (Jordanian dinars) annually (Abdallah and Al Antary,

2020), while in a Greek case study, annual monetary savings reached

€

3500 (Klontza et al., 2016). The potential monetary savings range from

€

110,000 to

€

380,000 annually for a 3-star hotel applying low-cost

measures (Gatt and Schranz, 2015). In some cases, the installation

cost and payback period are also calculated to concretely establish the

specic cost-benet result. Advanced high-tech measures that require a

high initial investment, as mentioned by Gabarda-Mallorquí and Ribas

(2018), such as the production of reclaimed water, have received

particular attention. In the case study of a hotel located in Mallorca

(Spain), the total annual cost of installing a reclaimed water system was

€

15,351 (Gual et al., 2008), while in hotels on small and medium-sized

Greek islands in the Aegean Sea, the unit cost per cubic metre, including

capital, depreciation, energy and maintenance, ranges from $0.25 to

$0.85 (Gikas and Tchobanoglous, 2009). Despite varying implementa-

tion and water costs, in some cases, the payback period for investors is

longer than in others. In Spanish conditions, the payback period is

Table 5

Number of documents by main research ndings.

Number of

documents

Reference number

Water-saving measures

implementation predictors

17*

Business strategical

factors

3 17, 19, 28

Environmental

awareness factors

2 19, 28

Legal factors 2 19, 31

Technical factors 4 2, 25, 28, 31

Socio-cultural factors 7 2, 3, 17, 18, 19, 28, 31

Infrastructural factors 11 1, 5, 6, 9, 17, 19, 20, 24, 25, 28,

Economic factors 10 1, 2, 14, 17, 19, 25, 28, 30, 31, 33

Water-saving measures

implementation effects

25*

Normative compliance 4 4, 10, 11, 23

Economic and/or

nancial analysis

9 1, 6, 8, 11, 12, 13, 21, 22, 23

Environmental impacts

identication

1 13

Water-saving efciency

assessment

21 1, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16, 21,

22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32,

Number of different documents, not the sum of documents in each group

item.

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

estimated to be seven years (Atanasova et al., 2017), while in northern

China it is 1.3 years (Chai et al., 2013).

Despite the previous common ndings, in many of the articles ana-

lysed, the main conclusions seem to differ. Firstly, environmental

awareness appears as a predictor in some studies (Torres-Bagur et al.,

2019). However, in other study cases, this ex-ante factor is not a clear

motivator (Llaus`

as et al., 2020). In the same way, articles aimed at

exploring infrastructural factors as ex-ante predictors point out different

ndings. Several articles highlight the importance of selecting the

proper water-saving technology according to the characteristics of the

hotel (Hocaoglu, 2017) since there are still some infrastructural con-

straints on the application of water-saving actions, especially advanced

measures such as rainwater harvesting systems (Abdallah and Al Antary,

2020) or reclaimed water production (Peters, 2015). Focusing on the

size of the hotel, several articles afrm that high-capacity (Arun and

Faraday, 2019; Kasim et al., 2017; Styles et al., 2015) and/or

highly-rated hotels (Dinar`

es and Saurí, 2015; Tirado et al., 2019) are

applying more water-saving measures because they tend to have high

technical and/or economic capacities. However, other studies suggest

that hotel characteristics are not a clear predictor (Llaus`

as et al., 2020).

It is also unclear whether efciency can be associated with economic

measures such as prices, taxation and/or licenses. While some articles

conrm that high water tariffs can lead to a signicant reduction in

water consumption (Razumova et al., 2016), others state that progres-

sive tariffs aimed at reducing consumption do not always result in water

consumption reduction (Dey`

a-Tortella et al., 2019) because higher

water prices don’t lead to less water use in hotels (Dey`

a-Tortella et al.,

2016).

3.8. About the stakeholders

To respond to the third research question, (RQ3) Which are the

stakeholders identied as key actors involved in water-saving measures

implementation and management?, the stakeholders analysed in the

articles were identied and classied according to three sub-codes: hotel

sector, public administration, and other service-based companies

(Table 6). The rst sub-code, hotel sector, refers to (1) pilot hotels as

built accommodation, where the research was conducted; (2) hotel

competition, mainly representing hotels other than those tested in the

articles yet somehow involved in the research; or (3) hotel managers,

referring to the person who was in charge and was, in fact, the main

object of the study. The ‘other service-based companies’ sub-code refers

to other companies involved in the sector, such as supply-licensed

companies and/or environmental consultancy services.Table 7

Analysis of the stakeholders involved and/or mentioned is also

important, as it indicates which of these actors were dened as essential

elements in the research conducted (Fig. 3). The stakeholders appearing

in the studies were pilot hotels where new technologies were being

tested. The research conducted in almost all the articles aimed to test,

explore, or analyse one or more water-saving measures in a represen-

tative sample of hotel buildings. Although in a few articles, hotel man-

agers were also of interest (seven articles), especially when ex-ante

factors were the main focus of the research (Brand˜

ao et al., 2018;

ElShafei, 2020; Kasim et al., 2014; Llaus`

as et al., 2020; Torres-Bagur

et al., 2019). Moreover, it is worth highlighting the number of

different documents mentioning public administration as a stakeholder

involved in water-saving practices in the hotel sector (ve documents)

playing important roles in promoting and funding water-saving

measures.

However, there is no clear agreement on the role that the public

Fig. 2. Number of documents analysing water-saving actions according to their ndings*. * Cells are coloured according to the minimum and maximum per row.

Table 6

Number of documents by stakeholder explored and/or mentioned as a repre-

sentative actor.

Number of

documents

Reference number

Hotel sector 33*

Pilot hotels 28 All the documents except 3,

18, 19, 25, 28

Hotel competition 4 2, 18, 28, 29

Hotel managers 6 3, 9, 18, 19, 25, 28

Public administration 5 1, 2, 12, 19, 25

Other service-based companies 2*

Supply-licensed

companies

1 27

Environmental

consultancy services

1 2

Number of different documents, not the sum of documents in each group

item.

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

sector needs to play in managing water-saving initiatives. While in some

cases public administration was seen as a fundamental source of funding

(Alonso, 2008), in others this was not seen as its main role (Barber´

et al., 2013). Less-mentioned stakeholders include hotel companies

other than pilot hotels, and other service-based companies such as

supply-licensed companies and environmental advisors. In some cases,

the role of other hotel companies has been considered to be a key

element in transferring expertise (Llaus`

as et al., 2020) and exchanging

knowledge of best practices in water-saving (Alonso, 2008). However,

according to the gures, it can be stated that these studies have mostly

centred on the analysis of one individual hotel, and external stake-

holders such as other hotel companies and/or other external services

have not been widely considered.

4. Discussion and conclusions

Bearing the results in mind, some issues need to be thoroughly dis-

cussed. Regarding authorship, the different disciplines involved in hotel

water-saving actions conrm that the exploration, testing and/or anal-

ysis of actions aimed at reducing water consumption in hotels involves a

multidisciplinary approach because multiple points of view must be

considered when elucidating the socioeconomic and environmental

feasibility of a specic water-saving practice. In general terms, water

implies social, economic, environmental, and technical issues when it

becomes a basic need. In fact, the own nature of water combines bio-

physical and socio-political elements that must be considered compre-

hensively (Swyngedouw, 2009). Thus, research in water-saving actions

requires engineering, socioeconomic, and environmental experts and

this indeed enriches the research in the eld. On the other hand, and as

mentioned previously, universities lead the ranking of the typology of

institutions the authors are afliated with, followed by research centres.

This is linked to a general trend worldwide observed: universities play

an essential role in research and knowledge production (Lopes et al.,

2021). However, private for-prot entities and public organisations are

underrepresented as collaborators in and/or conductors of research

linked to water-saving measures in the hotel sector. This has led to the

fact that knowledge production and transferability have been less

noticeable in tourism than in other economic sectors (H. Xiao and Smith,

2007). While private entities (mainly hotel companies) collaborated

with most of the articles analysed, usually as pilot studies, there is still a

long way to go before they can be converted into real knowledge

creators.

As for the main typology of water-saving actions applied, hotels tend

to apply low-cost water-saving initiatives much more intensively than

those that entail a high cost for hotels (Barber´

an et al., 2013). According

to the results, research is advancing in the same direction since two of

the top three most explored measures are in fact low-cost actions: the

replacement of regular taps and/or shower heads with water-saving

devices (explored in 12 documents) and the use of dual ush toilets

and/or limited lling systems (10 documents). This could be explained

by the fact that the highest amount of water use in accommodation takes

place in rooms (G¨

ossling, 2015), and so it is where water consumption

might be potentially reduced to a greater extent. Nevertheless, since a

positive link between the introduction of these measures and the cost

indicators of hotels would be expected, higher levels of efciency in the

use of water would allow the hotel to reduce operative costs, and with it,

an improvement in its prot margins. Currently, water costs are still

signicantly low for hotel companies in many countries. For example,

the study of Dey´

a and Tirado (2011) concludes that water costs account

for 4% of total hotel costs, while G¨

ossling et al. (2012) concludes that

they represent 0.6% of turnover in Steiermark (Austria) and 1.6% of

turnover in Morocco. If a cost-benet analysis linked to the imple-

mentation of a specic water-saving action is considered, it is expected

that the cost of the volume of water saved should be higher than the

Fig. 3. Number of documents analysing water-saving actions according to the stakeholders involved or mentioned*. * Cells are coloured according to the minimum and

maximum per row.

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

investment of the measure itself allowing greater cost efciency. How-

ever, due to the low price of water, hotel managers tend to seek those

economical water-saving actions. This fact could explain the low level of

high-cost initiatives applied. For this reason, and in line with several

regulations and recommendations from different international organ-

isms, to achieve sustainable and efcient water consumption levels, it is

essential that the price of water reects its real cost. In this sense, for

instance, the European Union launched the Water Framework Directive

2000/60/EC (WFD), based on the United Nations Conference on Envi-

ronment and Development principles. The directive recommends the

introduction of new tariff systems allowing all water-related costs to be

recovered (including nancial, environmental, and resource costs). For

this purpose, market pricing and incentives play an important role as

mechanisms for more efcient use of water and its conservation

(Charara et al., 2011).

Despite the mentioned before, according to this review, the rst

ranked most explored measure is the use of recycled/reclaimed water

from sewage produced within the hotel premises (explored in 15 doc-

uments), which is in fact a high-cost practice with high technical re-

quirements that provides clean water only for non-drinking outdoor

purposes. Although this action could not be of interest to hotel managers

and practitioners due to high initial investment and operational costs,

according to the papers reviewed the use of reclaimed water in hotels is a

highly explored scientic topic. In this case, research is effectively

testing the technology and checking the conditions for a proper imple-

mentation of this measure. In this sense, and even though practitioners

are not generally interested in applying such high-tech action, aca-

demics are moving faster and minimizing the likelihood of errors that

could jeopardize the implementation of this technology. Somehow, in

this case, science is providing the needed information to highlight the

signicant benets of using this non-conventional water resource. The

use of reclaimed water is thought to be essential in the transition to-

wards the circular economy (Mannina et al., 2022) and is also seen as a

potential non-conventional water resource in dealing with

water-stressed tourist destinations (Gabarda-Mallorquí et al., 2016). In

that sense, the circular economy is included in one of the six lines of

action proposed in the World Tourism Organization’s “Rethinking

tourism. From crisis to transformation” strategic plan (VV.AA., 2022)

since the tourism sector is fundamental in achieving the Sustainable

Development Goals (Gabarda-Mallorquí and Fraguell, 2020). As a

matter of fact, international hotel chains have recently incorporated

circularity-based actions in their corporate management dealing with

energy, food, and water overconsumption (Leyva and Parra, 2021).

Research in the use of reclaimed water in the hotel sector is moving

towards a parallel direction and advancing knowledge on this important

water resource to shed new light on the tourism-based circular economy

transition.

4.1. Implications for academic research

In view of the research ndings pointed out in the papers analysed,

some gaps have been identied, responding to the fourth research

question, (RQ4) What are the main gaps to be potentially lled by

research from any scientic eld?. In general terms, two main issues

relating to the ex-post analysis of water-saving actions have not yet been

adequately explored, despite their potential importance, and constitute

a potential research area for academia. On one hand, none of the water-

saving measures was analysed in terms of business strategy as a potential

effect since no articles have analysed the impact the introduction of

water-saving actions could have on hotels’ competitiveness. Although

legal regulations or tax incentives can indeed help to boost or expand the

levels of implementation of water-saving actions, they cannot be the

only factor that determines the implementation of these measures. A

committed sustainable way to guarantee water-saving actions’ imple-

mentation and improvement is by showing the business sector its posi-

tive effects on the hotel’s competitiveness.

On the other, exploring the potential effects of introducing water-

saving measures on the competitiveness of hotels could be a very use-

ful output for hotel managers and would increase the incentives and

motivation to implement water-saving actions in hotels. Pro-

environmental initiatives lead to higher efciency (that will lead to

better prot margins) and tend to improve hotels’ image for customers,

increasing their loyalty levels, revisiting intention, and willingness to

pay (Fraj et al., 2015). In addition, the growing sensitivity of customers

to the environmental management carried out in hotels has led to strong

pressures on managers. Hotels that do not implement an effective

environmental policy within their facilities are increasingly penalized

by their customers. Thus, it seems rational to expect that those hotels

with proactive water management would tend to display better levels of

competitiveness, both from revenues and cost sides. Academic research

in this eld would help to demonstrate to hotel managers that the

introduction of water-saving measures not only generates environ-

mental returns but also an economic return for the hotel. This would

undoubtedly facilitate and accelerate the implementation of these

measures in hotels.

Regarding the stakeholders explored, it must be noted that the an-

alyses centred on one hotel do not allow for the systemic exploration of

each of the water-saving measures. Most of the articles analysed focused

on one hotel as the main stakeholder involved in water-saving man-

agement, and there was a clear lack of research on the role of other

essential stakeholders. In this sense, Cole (2014) conducted an in-depth

and nuanced study to identify the role of key stakeholders involved in

the water management of tourist destinations. From a Political Ecology

approach, the author considered villa owners, community leaders, local

organizations, and/or government departments, among others, as the

main groups that compound the stakeholder map. Identifying all the

stakeholders involved in promoting, managing, and fostering

water-saving initiatives and how they cooperate is a fundamental

milestone in building a proper partnership for adaptation to climate

change (Cole, 2012). In this sense, water-centred circularity strategies

need to be adopted considering the myriad of stakeholders involved in a

tourist destination.

4.2. Managerial implications

One of the main ndings of this research is that it is important to

distinguish between the water-saving actions that hotels mostly apply

and the measures that are mostly the subject of analysis by academia. As

observed, one of the main focuses of research is currently the production

of reclaimed water. By doing that, the academy is somehow guiding the

hotel sector on how to reuse its own wastewater. As pointed out by the

results, it seems that the main predictors in the case of the use of

reclaimed water are technical/infrastructural and economic factors,

while environmental awareness is not one of the main factors that leads

hotel managers to apply this measure. Thus, the role of international

organizations and public administrations is essential to encourage and/

or include circular strategies in hotels, and therefore, to produce and use

their reclaimed water. In this sense, regional, national and/or interna-

tional hydrological policies need to advance in the promotion of the use

of reclaimed water through an optimal design of regulations and eco-

nomic instruments. To encourage the adoption of this kind of measures,

higher public investments in infrastructures are also needed to hotels

consume reclaimed water from public water supply (such as a parallel

distribution network for reclaimed water).

The results of this study could be useful to both policy and hotel

decision-makers. The more frequent and even severe drought periods

are pushing policymakers to design strategic plans to streamline water

use and consumption in the hotel sector. As mentioned before, and due

to the huge impact on water resources related to hotel services, espe-

cially in coastal tourist destinations, the implementation of efcient

water management policies in hotels is undoubtedly crucial to ensure

viable and competitive tourist destinations. In this sense, while it is true

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

that water price can be a proper instrument to moderate consumption, it

should not be the only one. Since a considerable volume of water con-

sumption takes place in hotel rooms, guests do not directly assume water

costs and the effectiveness linked to water prices could be signicantly

reduced. Thus, the introduction of legal and tax-based mechanisms to

encourage hotels to introduce water-saving actions must be essential.

Bearing this in mind, the results of this review provide a clear approach

to policy and hotel decision-makers to design and implement efcient

measures to reduce water consumption and/or to nd solutions to

minimize the impact on water resources.

Finally, it should be noted that the hotel sector is characterized by

many tourist destinations to be extremely atomized. In this sense, the

sector is composed of several types of companies. The introduction of

water-saving measures in this type of company tends to be complex due

to the lack of nancial resources, the reduced economy scale, or the lack

of effective information regarding the options and the efciency of po-

tential water-saving actions. All in all, another managerial implication is

linked to the assessment regarding the existing actions to save water that

could be implemented by hotel managers.

4.3. Limitations

It should be mentioned that this study has some limitations. One

limitation of the study is the subjective nature of the systematic review

of the literature, as it is a qualitative technique, so there may be a bias in

the interpretation of the results. Although other methodologies can

avoid or reduce this bias, such as bibliometric analysis and meta-

analysis, the specicity of the object of study and the scarcity of data

have not made the use of these methodologies appropriate. Related with

this, several exclusion criteria were used to select the articles most

appropriate to the main goal of this review and maybe papers relevant to

the objectives of the study. For this reason, the authors could explore

extending this study to incorporate the new existing literature on this

topic and thus compare these two methodologies.

On the other hand, although the WoS and Scopus databases have

been shown to be the most used search engines for scientic research, it

is also worth mentioning the importance of non-academic journals as an

essential information source for hotel managers and practitioners.

Although they are not of a research nature, these practitioner-oriented

magazines could lead hotel managers to adapt their infrastructures

and services and so reduce water consumption. This fact would be more

likely to result from non-academic magazines than scientic journals,

linked to a bandwagon effect. Thus, comparing this review with the

water-saving practices discussed in non-academic journals would allow

valuable analysis if research, in a broader sense, is gathering information

on the real efforts made to save water in the hotel sector.

4.4. Suggestions for further research

Once the state of the art on water saving actions carried out in the

hotel sector have been compiled, further research proposals based on the

main ndings and gaps detected are detailed next. First, a lack of

research on the role of other crucial stakeholders has been detected.

Thus, further research in dening and understanding all the stake-

holders involved in water management and consumption is essential in

transitioning to the circular economy in the hotel sector. Linked to that

and according to published studies, even though residents (Bujosa and

Rossell´

o, 2007; Puczk´

o and R´

atz, 2000) and customers (Rodri-

guez–Sanchez et al., 2020) are aware of the importance of saving water

by the tourism industry, the literature included in this review does not

consider them to be key actors in the management of water. In this sense,

further research is needed to determine how an action can affect guests’

behaviour during their stay. Potentially research topics could be based

on experiments to determine if customers consume water according to

the values they report to have. In this sense, the authors intend to open a

new line of research in this regard by conducting behavioural experi-

ments on hotel guests. New available technologies, such as smart water

meters, allow to gathering of data on real water consumption in hotels,

an essential aspect to continue advancing in the eld of water saving

through circular strategies in the tourism sector.

Secondly, and related to the above, it is important to note that most

of the studies reveal that the main difculty faced by researchers in this

eld is the non-existence of ofcial databases with cross-sectional or

temporary samples large enough to conduct statistically robust research.

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT)

brings the opportunity to install digital sensors capable of measuring

water consumption in real-time. These digital systems allow researchers

to analyse guests’ behaviour patterns, as well as to explore the effec-

tiveness of the water-saving measures applied to hotels. As veried in

this study, few studies have addressed this issue by measuring water

consumption in different hotel departments through submeters. Further

research could be conducted to explore the real effectiveness of any

water-saving action.

Finally, another potential research in the eld of water-saving in

hotels could be focused on the exploration of several existing manage-

ment models. During the last decade, new models of hotel management

have exponentially appeared, such as the management contracts in

which the property and the manager fall on two different actors. In this

sense, the property assets belong to local companies, real estate com-

panies or investment funds, while big hotel chains are in charge of the

management. Although chain afliation can reduce nancial dif-

culties, increase scale economies, and facilitate the introduction of

innovative issues (Orla-Sintes and Mattsson, 2009), these contracts can

lead to non-desired effects. The most frequently common presence of

investment funds, the high temporality of the contracts and/or the

rotation in the management companies threaten the introduction of

water-saving measures, especially when the actions have a long payback

period. To the authors’ knowledge, no academic article has attempted to

analyse the introduction of water-saving actions in this specic man-

agement model. Undoubtedly, this fact constitutes a plausible further

research line, considering the importance that hotel management con-

tracts have worldwide.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Dolores Tirado: Conceptualization, Data curation, Funding acqui-

sition, Resources, Writing – review & editing. Ariadna Gabarda-Mal-

lorquí: Conceptualization, Data curation, Methodology, Software,

Writing – original draft. Bartolom´

e Dey´

a Tortella: Conceptualization,

Data curation, Funding acquisition, Resources, Writing – review &

editing.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing nancial

interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to inuence

the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This study was nancially supported by the Ministry of Science and

Innovation, Government of Spain (ref. TED2021-132639B-I00), through

MCIN/AEI/10.13039/501100011033; the European Union “NextGe-

nerationEU”/PRTR; the Research, Universities, and Education Depart-

ment of the Regional Government (Balearic Islands, Spain) and the

Capdepera municipality Environmental and Tourism Chair (Balearic

Islands, Spain).

A. Gabarda-Mallorquí et al.

International Journal of Hospitality Management 120 (2024) 103747

Appendix

Table 7

Records included in this review.

ID Reference Authorship

background

Journal eld (according to

UNESCO standardization)

Research

method

Study case

1 (Abdallah and Al Antary,

2020)

Mixed Technological Sciences Quantitative Jordan

2 (Alonso, 2008) Economic Sciences Economic Sciences Mixed Australia

3 (Brand˜

ao et al., 2018) Economic Sciences Technological Sciences Qualitative Brazil

4 (Gattringer et al., 2016) Technological

Sciences

Geography Quantitative Spain

5 (Kasim et al., 2017) Economic Sciences Economic Sciences Quantitative Malaysia

6 (Klontza et al., 2016) Mixed Technological Sciences Quantitative Greece

7 (Toyosada et al., 2016) Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative Vietnam

8 (Rysulova et al., 2015) Sciences of Arts and

Letters

Geography Quantitative Slovakia

9 (Arun and Faraday,

2019)

Economic Sciences Medical Sciences Mixed India

10 (Antakyali et al., 2008) Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative Turkey

11 (Atanasova et al., 2017) Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative Spain

12 (Barber´

an et al., 2013) Economic Sciences Economic Sciences Quantitative Spain

13 (Chai et al., 2013) Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative China

14 (Chan et al., 2009) Mixed Economic Sciences Mixed Hong Kong

15 (Dey`

a-Tortella et al.,

2019)

Mixed Economic Sciences Quantitative Spain

16 (Dey`

a-Tortella et al.,

2016)

Mixed Economic Sciences Quantitative Spain

17 (Dinar`

es and Saurí,

2015)

Geography Geography Quantitative Spain

18 (ElShafei, 2020) Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative United Arab Emirates

19 (Torres-Bagur et al.,

2019)

Geography Technological Sciences Qualitative Spain

20 (Tirado et al., 2019) Mixed Technological Sciences Quantitative Spain

21 (Gatt and Schranz, 2015) Sciences of Arts and

Letters

Economic Sciences Quantitative Malta

22 (Gikas and

Tchobanoglous, 2009)

Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative Greece

23 (Gual et al., 2008) Mixed Technological Sciences Quantitative Spain

24 (Hocaoglu, 2017) Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative Turkey

25 (Kasim et al., 2014) Economic Sciences Economic Sciences Qualitative Malaysia

26 (Lamei, Van Der Zaag,

et al., 2009)

Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative Egypt

27 (Lamei, Von Münch,

et al., 2009)

Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Quantitative Egypt

28 (Llaus`

as et al., 2020) Geography Economic Sciences Qualitative Spain

29 (Mclennan et al., 2017) Economic Sciences Economic Sciences Quantitative Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, New Zealand, Indonesia,

Thailand

30 (Styles et al., 2015) Technological

Sciences

Economic Sciences Quantitative Unknown

31 (Peters, 2015) Technological

Sciences

Technological Sciences Mixed Anguilla, Antigua, Barbados, Dominica, Grenada, St Lucia, St

Vincent and the Grenadines, St Kitts and Nevis, Tobago

32 (Razumova et al., 2016) Economic Sciences Economic Sciences Quantitative Spain

33 (Rico et al., 2019) Geography Economic Sciences Quantitative Spain

See the Recommendation concerning the International Standardisation of Statistics on Science and Technology (https://www.unesco.org/en/legal-affairs/

recommendation-concerning-international-standardization-statistics-science-and-technology)

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Development of Creative Economy for Madura Odheng Crafts Based on Digital to Support the SDGs in Relatively Underdeveloped Areas in Madura Island

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025

Objective: One of the SDGs is to reduce inequality, including through economic empowerment for communities and improving access to technology. This research aims to: 1) explore the economic, philosophical, and cultural potential of Madura Odheng crafts; 2) develop a digital-based creative economy for Odheng crafts; 3) advance relatively underdeveloped areas through culture-based sustainable development. Method: The research method used is qualitative, employing exploratory research techniques. To obtain comprehensive data, the data collection methods include interviews, documentation, observation, and literature review. The data is then analyzed qualitatively following the stages proposed by Miles and Huberman. Results and Discussion: The results of the study show that the application of digital technology in the marketing and production of Odheng crafts has proven effective in enhancing competitiveness and market reach. E-commerce platforms, social media, and mobile applications help expand market access both nationally and internationally. Research Implications: The development of digital-based Odheng crafts supports sustainable development goals by creating an inclusive and sustainable economy. Originality/Value: the state of the art and the novelty expected from this research is the result of a study that addresses community welfare issues based on the potential of local culture as an economic source, primarily to address welfare issues in relatively underdeveloped areas. This involves analyzing regional typology based on the Klassen typology.

The Priority of Water Consumption in the Spanish Tourism Industry: A Dilemma for Residents and

Article

Full-text available

Aug 2024

Lázaro Florido-Benítez

Spain is one of the most water-stressed countries in the world. Regional governments face the challenge of ensuring long-term water security for residents and tourists. In 2024, Catalonia declared a state of emergency to tackle the problem of a lack of water. Catalonia and Andalusia regions imposed water restrictions, prohibiting residents from washing the exterior of their houses and cars or filling their swimming pools to guarantee tourism activities in hotels and other tourism companies. The research objective of the present study is to tackle the priority of water consumption in the Spanish tourism industry so that the availability of water is guaranteed for residents, without constraints on the supply. This research uses qualitative and quantitative methods to obtain a comprehensive view of the water consumption in Spain’s territory and the main zones of water scarcity that are affecting residents and the tourism industry. In addition, this study uses the Web of Science (WoS) database to analyse the bibliometrics on the topic of water consumption in the tourism industry from 2000 to 2023, as well as quantify the number of articles published by researchers. Findings reveal that although the tourism industry is the economic engine of Spain, water consumption by tourists is above the level of consumption of residents, and this asymmetrical situation should be reversed in favour of the welfare of Spanish citizens. It is noteworthy that the water scarcity in Spain and its continuing restrictions in the Andalusian and Catalonian regions have caused huge problems with drinking water supply in the last few years. Indeed, local and regional Spanish governments cannot demand that a resident consume 133 L per day, while a tourist is allowed to consume between 400 and 1000 L per day. For this reason, water availability must be a priority for residents and, especially, for the tourism industry. Economic interests cannot override citizens’ needs and well-being. This research has helped us better understand the complex relationships between the use of water in the tourism industry and by residents in the context of climate change.

Different destinations, different outcomes: a comprehensive analysis of hotel water management in Madeira and Tenerife

Article

Aug 2024

Proposal of a Water Consumption Efficiency Indicator for the Hotel Sector

Article

Full-text available

Nov 2022

This work proposes a novel indicator (HCWI) for evaluating water consumption efficiency in hotels. The indicator is built as a relative index that compares the current water consumption with an estimated minimum achievable value. To ensure the representativeness and applicability of the index, the evaluation of this water consumption baseline considers each water consumption micro-component individually and has been simplified, so it only requires fundamental characteristics of the hotel and those that are easy to identify and quantify. A value of the HCWI equal to one indicates the best water use efficiency that can be theoretically achieved with the technology available. On the contrary, larger values of the HWCI indicate high levels of water use inefficiency by the hotel. The applicability of the indicator is tested in six different hotels located in a touristic region in the north of Spain.

Environmental approach in the hotel industry: Riding the wave of change

Article

Full-text available

May 2021

This study provides an exploratory review of how domestic and foreign hotel companies operating in Cuba approach their environmental management from the content publicly communicated on their websites. For this purpose, a quantitative analysis of contents is carried out by means of text mining and Hierarchical Cluster Analysis. Among the results we obtained, it stands out that there is considerable variation in the information that the 10 leading hotel companies provide publicly and only half of them communicate their environmental commitment strategy. The conclusions obtained indicate that Iberostar is the company that promotes the most comprehensive environmental strategy among these ten hotel groups and has the highest level of transversality. Since Iberostar is also one of the leading companies in this field globally, a detailed analysis of its model is carried out. This model can be useful as a benchmarking framework for hotel companies around the world.

Networks, Innovation and Knowledge Transfer in Tourism Industry: An Empirical Study of SMEs in Portugal

Article

Full-text available

Apr 2021
Soc Sci

The present study aims to investigate how commercialisation and knowledge transfer between the SMEs of the tourism sector and the higher education institutions (HEIs) are made, as well as to find out whether the SMEs of the tourism sector are part of tourism networks, and what their motivations are. We used a qualitative methodology, applying the triangulation method to eight SMEs and one HEI. The results indicate that the commercialisation and knowledge transfer between the SMEs and the HEIs are not effective. SMEs are part of regional networks of business innovation; however, they do not participate in R&D activities with HEIs. Some suggestions were made to SMEs, HEIs, and regional governments to speed up commercialisation and knowledge transfer in the tourism sector. We adapted the Triple Helix Model to the tourism sector, thus creating the “Triple Helix in the Tourism Context”. Only a few studies have researched knowledge commercialisation in the tourism sector, a gap that this article aims to compensate.

Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus: The Titans of Bibliographic Information in Today’s Academic World

Article

Full-text available

Mar 2021

Raminta Pranckutė

Nowadays, the importance of bibliographic databases (DBs) has increased enormously, as they are the main providers of publication metadata and bibliometric indicators universally used both for research assessment practices and for performing daily tasks. Because the reliability of these tasks firstly depends on the data source, all users of the DBs should be able to choose the most suitable one. Web of Science (WoS) and Scopus are the two main bibliographic DBs. The comprehensive evaluation of the DBs’ coverage is practically impossible without extensive bibliometric analyses or literature reviews, but most DBs users do not have bibliometric competence and/or are not willing to invest additional time for such evaluations. Apart from that, the convenience of the DB’s interface, performance, provided impact indicators and additional tools may also influence the users’ choice. The main goal of this work is to provide all of the potential users with an all-inclusive description of the two main bibliographic DBs by gathering the findings that are presented in the most recent literature and information provided by the owners of the DBs at one place. This overview should aid all stakeholders employing publication and citation data in selecting the most suitable DB.

Social media influencer marketing: A systematic review, integrative framework and future research agenda

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2021
Int J Consum Stud

Over the past few years, the popularity of social media influencers (SMIs) has been growing exponentially, making influencer marketing (IM) prevalent in firm strategies. Despite the mounting interest of researchers and practitioners, the resulting scholarly work remains divergent, partial and fragmented. In light of the pivotal role of SMIs on the consumer decision journey and as this research domain is still developing, a comprehensive and critical overview of extant research on this topic is sorely needed. In response, this paper is the first to consolidate the present state of research on IM within social media settings. More specifically, a systematic review of relevant studies published in peer‐reviewed academic journals across diverse fields was conducted in order to identify key themes and dominant concepts. The analysis of 68 articles from 29 Chartered Association of Business Schools‐ranked journals forges a robust understanding of this phenomenon, shedding light on the mechanisms underlying the appeal of SMIs and their influential power in shaping consumer attitudes and behaviour. Based on the analysis, an integrative multidimensional framework is presented that considers antecedents, mediators and moderators of potential outcomes, as well as contextual factors that translate into consumer behaviour. In so doing, various research gaps are identified and avenues for future research are proposed that reflect important emerging areas and unexplored realms with reference to theory, context and methodology. Conclusively, implications of this study for theory and practice are discussed.

Reconnecting with nature: developing urban spaces in the age of climate change

Article

Feb 2019

Steffen Lehmann

Climate change is occurring around us and impacting on our daily lives, meaning that we have to deal with our cities in a different way. There is also increasing awareness of the need for daily contact with green spaces and the natural environment in order to live a happy, productive and meaningful life. This reflective essay tells the narrative of how urbanisation has been disconnecting humans from nature. Non-sustainable, non-resilient patterns of urbanisation, along with the neglect of inner-city areas, have resulted in fragmentation and urban decline, led to a loss of biodiversity, and caused the deterioration of ecosystems and their services. Urban regeneration projects allow us to “repair” and restore some of this damage whilst enhancing urban resilience. Connecting existing and enhanced ecosystems, and re-establishing ecosystems both within cities and at the peri-urban fringe is vital for strengthening ecosystem resilience and building adaptive capacity for coping with the effects of climate change. Cities worldwide need to look for suitable solutions to increase the resilience of their urban spaces in the face of climate change. This essay explores how this can be achieved through the integration of nature-based solutions, the re-greening of neighbourhoods and by correctly attributing value to natural capital. Transforming existing cities and neighbourhoods in this way will enable ecosystems to contribute their services towards healthier and more liveable cities.

Determining the scope of the review and the questions it will address

Chapter

Sep 2019

Water. In: Climate Change 2022: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability. Contribution of Working Group II to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

Technical Report

Feb 2022

Water Reuse from wastewater treatment: The transition towards Circular Economy in the water sector

Article

Sep 2022
BIORESOURCE TECHNOL

Water is crucial for economic development since it interacts with the agricultural, production, and energy sectors. However, the increasing demand and climate change put pressure on water sources. This paper argued the necessity of using reclaimed water for irrigation within the scope of a circular economy. The barriers (i.e., technological and economic, institutional/regulatory, and social) to water reuse practices were revealed. Lessons on how to overcome the barriers were learned from good practices. The roadmaps adopted in the European Union for the transition towards the circular economy were reviewed. It has been observed that these roadmaps are generally on the circularity of solid wastes. However, water is too important for the economy to be ignored in the transition towards circular economy. Research needs and perspective for a comprehensive roadmap to widen water-smart solutions such as water reuse were drawn.

How to conduct a bibliometric analysis: An overview and guidelines

Article

Apr 2021
J BUS RES

Bibliometric analysis is a popular and rigorous method for exploring and analyzing large volumes of scientific data. It enables us to unpack the evolutionary nuances of a specific field, while shedding light on the emerging areas in that field. Yet, its application in business research is relatively new, and in many instances, underdeveloped. Accordingly, we endeavor to present an overview of the bibliometric methodology, with a particular focus on its different techniques, while offering step-by-step guidelines that can be relied upon to rigorously perform bibliometric analysis with confidence. To this end, we also shed light on when and how bibliometric analysis should be used vis-à-vis other similar techniques such as meta-analysis and systematic literature reviews. As a whole, this paper should be a useful resource for gaining insights on the available techniques and procedures for carrying out studies using bibliometric analysis. Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Performance analysis; Science mapping; Citation analysis; Co-citation analysis; Bibliographic coupling; Co-word analysis; Network analysis; Guidelines.

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