Environmental and carbon footprint of tourist accommodation: a comparative study of popular hotel categories in Brazil and Peru

The environmental externalities of tourist accommodation are substantial, but their scientific appraisals have been far from holistic. Existing environmental impact assessment studies focus on hotel operations and exclude indirect material inputs and outputs due to data (un)availability. Important environmental ‘hotspots’ can be ignored in the result as these are often concealed in the diversity and complexity of a hotel's products and services. This study employs the method of environmental life cycle impact assessment to appraise the environmental externalities occurring through the life cycle of four popular comfort categories of hotels (hostel, budget, upmarket and luxury) in two countries of South America (Brazil and Peru). The appraisal is facilitated by the ecoinvent database (version 3.6, Allocation cut-off by classification) and the SimaPro software (version 9.1.1). The intra-sectoral and cross-country analysis reveals correlation of the environmental and carbon footprint with hotel comfort categories. The study finds that (1) treatment of solid waste generated in hotel operations; (2) construction of the hotel building; and (3) operational energy use; generate the largest footprints across all major impact categories. The contribution of (4) consumer goods, such as furniture, electric and electronic equipment, bathroom/sanitary fixtures and carpets, is also significant. The study advocates that these operational and non-operational material inputs and outputs should be accounted for in future environmental and carbon impact assessments of hotels. The study provides the first benchmarks of major embodied, indirect environmental and carbon impacts of hotels that can be used, with appropriate adjustments, in future research.