Date of Award

2021

Document Type

Master Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Business

Department

Organisation & Professional Development

First Advisor

Angela Wright

Abstract

Hospitality emphasizes the ability for exchange of friendly and generous reception between businesses, guests and strangers. The complex nature of future travel and tourism industry directs the converging forces towards the hospitality industry to develop progressive strategies in response to increasing economic turbulence. Within the hotel sector, particular emphasis on emerging opportunities like sustainability and digitization are quickly shaping the strategic agenda in this competitive sector. It is envisaged that the hospitality industry will differ completely from today, owing to developments in artificial intelligence and smart technology. This research has explored the key components of the overall ‘smart and green’ agenda among Irish hotels. It began with a comprehensive review of literatures on the subject of interest. It is found that while the multifaceted hybrid model of ‘smart and green’ hotels is rapidly emerging as the new theme in the sustainable tourism industry, previous literatures have failed to address the issue in relation to the lack of uptake from Irish hoteliers. To answer the main research question on ‘smart and green’ hotels concept for the future of Irish hospitality industry, a qualitative methodology, guided by a post-positivistic paradigm of ontology was adopted. Ten semi-structured interviews were conducted via Zoom, Microsoft Teams and phone, with key stakeholders across a range of hotels, both rural and urban, in Ireland to obtain insightful data. An important theme that emerged from this study is that the Covid-19 pandemic has severely decimated the Irish hospitality industry. Interestingly, this study reveals that despite rapid advancement in the space of artificial intelligence technology, 100% of participants cited that most visitors to Ireland seek the famed ‘Irish hospitality’, which is built upon human interaction. This exhaustive study is central to offering a conceptualization of this hybrid model in the Irish hospitality industry and its primary dimensions. This research will be of benefit to policy makers, central government, governmental organizations (e.g., Fáilte Ireland), tourism organizations (e.g., Irish Hotel Federations), hotel practitioners, hotel managers and multinational hotel management companies. The findings gathered from this study, coupled with desk-based secondary research, offer a far-reaching review on the exploration of ‘smart and green’ hotels concept in Ireland, while providing further insights to academics for future longitudinal study.

Access Level

info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess

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