Carbon footprint assessment of home-stays in Thailand

Home-stays represent a popular category of tourist accommodation in South-East Asia but their carbon footprint has not been systematically assessed. This hampers an understanding of the energy consumption patterns of home-stays, impedes identification of the main carbon hotspots in home-stay operations and prevents a comparative analysis of the carbon performance of home-stays against other tourist accommodation categories. Using the method of screening Life Cycle Energy Analysis (LCEA), this study assessed the carbon footprint of a sample of home-stays in Thailand and undertook its comparative analysis against other categories of tourist accommodation, globally and in Thailand. The overall annual carbon footprint of home-stays was assessed as low (1.3 tonnes of CO₂-eq. per home-stay on average) which was due to small size and limited guest amenities. The ‘per guest night’ carbon footprint of home-stays was comparable to that of budget hotels in Thailand (0.32 kg of CO₂-eq. per home-stay on average) which was attributed to low occupancy driven by high demand seasonality.