Quality management, environmental management and firm performance in the Spanish hotel industry

Comunicación presentada en el XVI Simposio Internacional de Turismo y Ocio, ESADE, 23 mayo 2007.

The link between quality management and environmental management systems and firm performance has traditionally been an important topic in the operations management literature. However, only few studies have jointly analysed these two management systems. In this respect, no conclusive results have so far been obtained about the relationship between these three variables. Additionally, the analysis in a service sector such as tourism has been less deep than in manufacturing sectors. The aim of this study is to identify the degree of commitment of Spanish 3-to-5-star hotels to quality management and environmental management and to test whether those hotels most strongly committed to these two management systems are the ones which reach the highest performance levels. Among the managerial implications derived from this study stands out that hoteliers are given a straightforward description of the sector’s behaviour patterns in relation to quality and environmental management, along with the opportunity to know which variables they should improve in order to increase their degree of commitment.