Problems in Green Hotels in China

In the 1990s, the world entered an "environmental protection era" and a "green era". The arrival of the green era has a great influence on the development of the world economy, and the hotel industry is no exception. People pay more and more attention to resources and environmental protection in the process of production and consumption. Although tourist hotels will not bring serious damage to ecology and biology like heavy industries with high energy consumption and serious pollution, they will also bring different degrees of implicit or explicit pollution and waste of resources to the environment. The establishment of China's sustainable development strategy standardizes the management behavior of China hotels in terms of policies and laws, and requires hotels to realize green marketing. The trend of international environmental protection has also had a great impact on hotels in China, requiring hotels to conduct marketing according to international environmental protection standards. Under the pressure of environmental protection at home and abroad, some hotels in China began to establish green marketing awareness. However, it goes without saying that most hotels in China are far from green marketing, and even have no green marketing color at all. China hotels still have a long way to go to implement green marketing.

First, the definition of green marketing

Green marketing is driven by green consumption. Green consumption means that consumers realize that environmental deterioration has affected their quality of life and lifestyle, and require enterprises to produce and sell green products with the least negative impact on the environment, thus reducing consumption that harms the environment. The so-called green marketing means that enterprises comply with the trend of green consumption, from the perspective of protecting the environment, opposing pollution and making full use of resources, and meet the green needs of consumers and realize the marketing objectives of enterprises through measures such as developing products, utilizing nature and turning waste into treasure. The meaning of "green" here is varied. It can refer to products, industries or industries, and it can also refer to a management philosophy or behavior concept. The central meaning of "green" refers to protecting the earth's ecological environment, promoting the harmonious relationship between man and nature, social economy and ecological environment, and ensuring the sustainable development of human society and economy.

The implementation of "green marketing" has three purposes: one is to save material consumption and protect the earth's resources; Second, ensure the safety, hygiene and convenience of products, thus helping people's physical and mental health and improving their quality of life; Third, guide green consumption, cultivate people's green consciousness and optimize people's living environment. "Green marketing" aims to realize people's green consumption from the environment and make the environment green.

Second, the implementation of green marketing in the hotel industry has achieved initial results.

1. Many hotels have begun to form a sense of social responsibility. With the gradual promotion of marketing concept in China, hotels are more and more aware that as a member of society, hotels should undertake social responsibilities. For example, on April 28th, 199, 14 tourist hotels such as Hangzhou Zhijiang Resort Hotel and Zhejiang World Trade Center Hotel jointly launched the initiative of "creating green hotels and advocating green consumption", which aroused the enthusiastic response of dozens of tourist hotels in Zhejiang, and "green" suddenly became a hot topic in Hangzhou hotels. The hotel representative who took the lead in responding to the "greening" activities said: We don't hesitate to invest, just want to reduce waste and make the limited resources play the greatest role; The hotel has no intention to restrict the behavior of the guests, but only hopes to improve the environment with the guests and get a clean and beautiful "green" feeling; Green consumption will become the mainstream of consumption in 2 1 century. Joining the green consumption team is a noble behavior and meets the requirements of modern civilization.

2. Producing green products has become the goal of some hotels. Many hotels put this card in their rooms, which says, "If you don't need to change the sheets, please put the card on the pillow". Most overseas guests who stayed for more than one day did it, while mainland guests rarely did it. This may be due to two reasons: one is forgetting to put it, and the other is thinking about changing the sheets every day. These guests may think: I paid for it, no matter how many days I stay, disposable items should be changed every day, and sheets and towels should be changed every day. Isn't promoting "green" just to save money? A hotel manager said that green marketing may save money objectively, but this is not the main purpose. We just want to reduce waste and make limited resources play a greater role. Some changes are actually completely unnecessary, such as towels. Reuse may be more hygienic than changing it once. The sheets are not dirty after sleeping for a day or two, so it may be more comfortable for guests not to change them. More importantly, save electricity and water, reduce the use of detergents, protect the environment, and embody the spirit of green consumption in the consumption process. Hotels should regard guests as environmental partners, and employees should publicize the hotel's environmental protection plans and measures, provide green products and services for guests, and let them know, understand and buy. Most foreign countries and some big hotels in Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou and other places in China have implemented green marketing, and there are no disposable toothbrushes and disposable bathtubs. In the room. Some hotels are gradually promoting the use of green rooms. When designing and planning a hotel, we should consider green building materials and whether there is environmental pollution in the decoration materials. Rooms use green products, such as natural fibers, cotton, linen products, small green refrigerators, energy-saving lamps and so on.

3. Some hotels have implemented cleaner production according to environmental standards. In recent years, many hotels in China have gradually attached importance to cleaner production according to environmental protection standards, and some have achieved good results. For example, Hangzhou Zhijiang Resort, with the help of the Energy Monitoring Center of the Provincial Planning Commission, invested heavily in changing most lighting equipment into energy-saving lamps, and received obvious energy-saving effects last year. Haihua Hotel is managed by the internationally renowned Accor Hotel Management Group. Mr. Lu, general manager of Switzerland, said: "A year ago, Haihua used 45 tons of water every day. I don't believe there will be so many. After inspection, it was found that water leakage and excessive water use were very serious. By saving money, such as putting a sink in the water tank and changing the faucet used by employees to infrared control, only 25 tons are used every day. " As long as effective measures are taken, energy consumption can still be reduced by 20%-30%.

4. China's environmental label has entered the implementation stage. Environmental labels, also known as green labels and ecological labels, refer to certificates issued by government departments, public organizations and private organizations to relevant manufacturers according to certain environmental standards, which prove that the production, use and disposal processes of their products meet the requirements of environmental protection, are harmless to the environment or not, and are conducive to the regeneration and recycling of resources. At present, the more successful ecological signs in the world are the blue angel in Germany and the ecological signs in Japan. 1in March, 1993, China began to implement the environmental label meter.

It is planned that by April, 1996, eight categories of products have been certified as environmental labels, and 35 products of 2 1 company have obtained China environmental labels. With the entry of environmental label products into thousands of households, the influence of environmental label products in marketing is increasing day by day.

5. Green marketing technology has become the choice of more and more hotels. It should be noted that in recent years, more and more hotels in China consciously or unconsciously adopt green marketing technology to carry out marketing activities. For example, some restaurants open green food stores in their stores; Use environmentally friendly substances instead of substances that pollute the environment to produce green packaging; In terms of pricing, price strategies such as profit-making sales and conscience pricing have become the choices of many hotels. The above situation reflects that the greening of hotel marketing technology in China has developed to a certain extent.

Third, the problems of green hotel marketing

Although China's hotel green marketing has made a good start, there is no awareness of green marketing in general, and traditional and unsustainable marketing concepts and methods still occupy a dominant position in these hotels, thus affecting the process of green hotel marketing in China and adversely affecting the effective implementation of China's economic sustainable development strategy. The problems existing in the greening of hotel marketing in China mainly include:

1. Hotel marketing objectives are still in the stage of stimulating consumption and pursuing consumption increase. One of the watershed between green marketing and traditional marketing is the attitude towards consumption. Green marketing pursues sustainable consumption mode, improves consumption quality and reduces consumption quantity, while traditional marketing stimulates consumption and encourages more consumption. At present, the focus of most hotels in China is still to stimulate or motivate consumers to consume more products. In recent years, the number of tourist hotels has grown too fast, which not only wastes resources, but also makes resources unreasonable. Hotels in China, especially

It is the general surplus of high-end hotels and the low occupancy rate of rooms in the off-season of tourism, which leads to vicious price reduction competition among hotels and the decline of hotel service quality, which runs counter to the concept of green marketing.

2. Resource protection has not yet become the marketing principle of all kinds of enterprises. Resource protection is one of the principles of green marketing, but many hotels in China have not established a correct view of resources. A hotel with 300 rooms consumes more than 3,000 tons of standard coal a year, and the energy cost accounts for a large proportion in the hotel cost. According to the monitoring results of several typical hotels in Zhejiang Province by Energy Monitoring Center, the energy utilization rate of most hotels has not reached the advanced level. This is mainly manifested in the following aspects: the equipment is not in an economic operation state; The equipment control system is not perfect, which leads to the ineffective operation of the equipment; The equipment operation efficiency is low, so it can't run at full load; Energy-saving lamps are not used where they can be used.

3. Green products have not become the first choice for hotels. In many countries, green products have become the best-selling products and consumers' first choice products, but it is far from it in China. Some hotels even pursue polluting products for petty profits. For example, although the Shanghai municipal government has repeatedly asked the catering industry to cancel the foamed plastic lunch boxes and use degradable lunch boxes, it is difficult to implement them just because the cost of degradable lunch boxes is slightly higher than that of foamed plastic lunch boxes.

4. The environmental labeling system has not attracted the attention of most hotels. At present, some developed countries have generally implemented the environmental labeling system. Under the background of economic globalization, environmental labeling has become the green key to open the international market. With the implementation of environmental labeling system in more and more countries, more and more products are included in the scope of environmental labeling, and the impact on China's export products will continue to increase, and its impact and consequences will greatly exceed the anti-dumping bill. China's environmental label has been implemented since 1994. However, due to the large domestic market, consumers' demand for environmental label products is not strong, and most hotels are not interested in obtaining environmental labels.

5. Green thinking mode is not introduced into hotel marketing means. Because many hotels in China have not yet established environmental awareness, marketing methods are still limited to traditional methods. For example, some hotels are not interested in public welfare undertakings, but they can spend a lot of money to pursue the "star effect"; Some hotels actually attract customers with vulgar things, causing mental pollution; In the market competition, it is not quality that wins. Instead, they compete to attract customers and even belittle their opponents by means of "discount", "lottery" and "giving high kickbacks to taxi drivers"; In the packaging and decoration of products, seeking for greatness, refinement and luxury not only increases the cost of products and the burden on consumers, but also consumes a lot of packaging materials, resulting in a lot of waste of resources; In terms of product pricing, they either cut customers at a "big price" to make huge profits, or compete for sales at a low price, seriously hurting competitors and disrupting market order. These are all related to green marketing.

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6. The concept of environmental cost has not been accepted by most hotels. The key to environmental protection lies in prevention in advance and pollution prevention in the whole process of products. However, at present, China's environmental protection is still in the stage of "pollution first, then treatment" and lacks overall management measures. Therefore, most hotels fail to establish the concept of environmental protection and accept the concept of environmental cost, which is crucial to cleaner production. As a result, the environmental cost is externalized.

Fourth, the tasks and countermeasures for hotels to implement green marketing.

1. Save material consumption and protect the earth's resources. The process of saving material consumption is also the process of strengthening waste treatment and control. To prevent waste, we can consider it from five aspects: (1) Minimize and avoid waste. Two points are emphasized here. First, we should attach great importance to the maintenance and repair of equipment and facilities and extend the equipment replacement cycle; Second, the purchase of goods should be scientifically counted to avoid waste. (2) Pay attention to the recycling of reusable items. For example, paper should be used on both sides, or printing paper should be used as draft paper. (3) Recycle the items that can't be reused, and do a good job of recycling, such as waste paper, plastics, aluminum products, etc. Some foreign hotels will also recycle the remaining soap heads and sell them to manufacturers. Recycling can reduce the garbage that cannot be reused. (4) Make full use of fuel and advocate recycling. (5) Look carefully at what items in the current hotel's business content and service mode have not substantially improved the living environment and service quality, but are not conducive to saving resources and protecting the environment.

Save energy. In addition to educating employees to develop good habits of saving water and electricity and formulating incentives, it is more important to adopt advanced energy-saving equipment as far as possible, and install energy-saving lighting devices, water-saving equipment and energy control facilities, such as energy-saving lamps, induction water valves and energy-limiting systems. The energy-saving potential of the hotel is considerable. As long as management is strengthened, operation skills are improved, and some energy-saving equipment is adopted, it is entirely possible for the hotel to reduce energy consumption 15%-25%.

2. Ensure that the products are safe, hygienic and convenient to use, so as to benefit people's physical and mental health and improve their quality of life. Open up "green space". "Green rooms" refer to rooms that pay attention to environmental protection. Of course, the items in the guest room should contain "green" factors as much as possible, such as sheets and towels, preferably pure natural cotton and linen fabrics; Soap should be pure vegetable oil soap; In addition, one or two pots of plants are placed in the guest room to make the guest room full of vitality and spring. At the same time, guide guests to become resource savers and environmental protectors.

Establish a "green restaurant". Here refers to two aspects: First, the use of "green" vegetables. Green food such as meat, that is, pollution-free, safe and high-quality vegetables and food. In order to ensure the supply of "green" vegetables and meat, we should learn from the practices of McDonald's and KFC to establish a special production base, and several hotels in a region can jointly open up; Second, don't eat rare wild animals and plants and beneficial birds and animals. If traditional dishes are famous for their rare animals and plants, we should study their substitutes.

Provide green services. The so-called green service means that the services provided by hotels are aimed at protecting natural resources, humanistic ecological environment and human health, and can meet the requirements of green consumers.

Strengthen environmental management and prevent pollution. In terms of environmental protection and pollution control, the state stipulates that hotels should have complete sewage and waste gas treatment facilities, and the discharge of water pollutants and waste gas should meet national standards; The boundary noise of the hotel should meet the standard of environmental noise use area; Self-provided vehicles use unleaded gasoline, and the exhaust emission reaches the national standard; Require boilers to use clean fuels such as oil and gas as much as possible to reduce pollutant emissions; Non-phosphorus detergent and cleaner should be used in laundry room and PA group. If the above projects still fail to meet the national standards. Hotels must take effective measures to improve equipment and technology and meet the standards as soon as possible. From the development trend of reducing pollution and protecting the environment, hotel environmental management should do the following work: comprehensive utilization and classified collection of solid waste, especially the classified collection of used batteries; Minimize the impact of indoor noise (especially noise that interferes with guest rooms) on guests; When the hotel is rebuilt, we should pay attention to the use of materials and commodities with environmental protection signs. For example, some decorative stones have serious radioactive substances exceeding the standard, and some paints and coatings contain volatile substances harmful to human health. These are all problems that should be paid attention to in environmental management.

3. Guide green consumption, cultivate people's green consciousness and optimize people's living environment. In the eyes of ordinary old people, tourist hotels are places with high consumption, which are often associated with extravagance and excessive pursuit of material enjoyment. Serious environmental problems are changing people's traditional ideas. The consumption pattern of excessively consuming natural resources, paying attention to ostentation and extravagance, and pursuing luxury material enjoyment is gradually denied. Consuming and wasting natural resources can only aggravate the deterioration of the environment and hinder the progress of human civilization. The hotel is a high-end consumption place, where green rooms are launched, green services are provided, and green food is provided to guide guests to make green consumption.

This is of great significance to establish public awareness of environmental protection.

Five, the development trend of hotel green marketing

1. Green marketing has become a hot spot in the new trend of world marketing across the century, including information marketing, green marketing, political marketing, relationship marketing, network marketing and integrated marketing. According to economists' prediction, in the 2 1 century, environmental protection will become an important factor affecting the relationship between market supply and demand and an important issue in marketing. Green marketing with the theme of environmental protection will play an increasingly prominent role in future marketing, bringing many opportunities and benefits to hotels.

2. Green marketing is increasingly supported by the government and all walks of life. Green marketing has many benefits to the government and the public, including reducing the burden of environmental protection work of the government, implementing the government's environmental protection policy and achieving the strategic goal of sustainable development, and improving the quality of public living environment and quality of life.

3. Green marketing is not only an operational field of hotel marketing, but also a strategic height of hotel's long-term development. For most hotels that implement green marketing, green marketing is a part of their specific hotel development strategy. The hotel regards green marketing as a new opportunity to open up the market, attract consumers, beat competitors and seek the rapid development of the hotel. In addition, all aspects of the hotel involve green marketing, in other words, green marketing is the "green overall action" of all hotels, including hotel concept, hotel production, finance and other departments, as well as hotel organization settings, which are adjusted accordingly to match green marketing. At the same time, the implementation of green marketing also has negative effects on these aspects, for example, improving the image of hotels is conducive to hotel financing and attracting outstanding talents.

4. The interaction between green marketing and consumers is enhanced. Green marketing cannot succeed alone, but also depends on the interaction with consumers. First of all, green marketing should be based on the premise that consumers' green consciousness is transformed into green consumption behavior, otherwise green marketing can only be a statement and empty. Secondly, because of the large investment in green marketing, the green price is high, which also needs the understanding and acceptance of consumers. In addition, in the early stage of green marketing, green investment is huge, and sometimes the hotel itself can't afford it. At this time, consumers need to invest in premiums and make early investment in hotels. In short, on the one hand, consumers promote green marketing, on the other hand, green marketing also promotes the change of consumer consumption patterns, and the two have been in the process of interaction.

5. There will be more market differentiation in the process of green marketing. This differentiation is mainly caused by the differences in market standards of green products in various countries and regions. In recent years, in order to achieve the goal of environmental protection, various countries and regions have taken some unilateral actions to set environmental protection standards for some important commodities and restrict import and export, which has triggered bilateral and multilateral trade frictions. Green protection means protecting the environment through various laws, making food natural and the environment green. Green requirements for air source purification. At present, the world has signed 150 multilateral environmental protection agreements, nearly 20 of which contain trade clauses, aiming at implementing environmental protection laws and regulations through trade means. Countries have also formulated increasingly complex and strict environmental protection technical standards for imported products. The trend of environmental protection in all countries tends to incorporate environmental protection measures into trade rules and objectives, which undoubtedly increases the complexity and differentiation of the environment in green marketing. This will have a great impact on the collectivization and transnational development of hotels in China.

6. "Green marketing" will become more and more standardized. As a new market behavior, green marketing is in its infancy, and the legislation and supervision in all aspects are not yet mature, and the market order has not yet been established. Many hotels take the opportunity to use the "green" smoke screen to create a so-called green image for themselves, but in fact the marketing itself has not been "green". At present, some countries have made various regulations on "green proposition", including that hotels must take practical actions, otherwise they can't publicize their green image in front of the public, and they must use specific examples when promoting green image, instead of saying "green", "environmental protection" and "ecology" in general. In addition, the implementation of green logo is also the "truth" of green marketing behavior. Green logo is a notarial appraisal of the "green" performance of products, which is more convincing than the green claim implemented by hotels. Green signs not only require maximum elimination of pollution in the production process, but also require attention to the impact of products on environmental protection in the consumption process, which is not easy for green marketing hotels.

7. Green barriers will replace traditional non-tariff barriers in international trade. Green barrier refers to a new form of international trade protection organization, which constitutes a new trade protection network in the international market. The form of "green barrier" is "green tariff", also known as "environmental import surcharge", which means to impose additional tariffs on some imported products that affect the ecological environment on the grounds of protecting the environment; "Green technical standards", in the name of environmental protection, developed countries formulate strict and mandatory environmental technical standards through legislative means to restrict the import of foreign goods; "Green quarantine" means that developed countries have formulated strict health and quarantine standards in order to restrict the import of foreign products, especially for pesticide residues, radioactive substances residues and heavy metals in food. As a new non-tariff barrier, environmental protection measures will be more and more favored by trade protectionists because of its strong concealment, high technical requirements and strong flexibility. At the same time, it strengthens the position of green marketing in international marketing, which will have a far-reaching impact on the development of China hotel industry in the 2 1 century.