The Impact of Climate Change on Small Hotels in Granada, Spain

Abstract

This paper investigates how small hotels in Granada, Spain are responding to climate change. Few hospitality and tourism studies, and those that focus on climate change, consider small firms' perspectives and thus this paper provides a voice to the sector. It explores whether small hotels are aware of climate change issues in their day-to-day operations, and how they are strategically responding to the change. The findings are framed by Lewin's (1951) three step theory, a cornerstone for understanding organisational change. The research findings, based on interviews with 11 small hotel owners and managers, indicate most of the hotels showed concern and some awareness about the impacts of climate change on tourism in Granada, but did not think the impacts would significantly affect their establishments. Some of the hotels were already employing environmental management strategies but felt that the local city council should act as a catalyst for further and co-ordinated action on climate change and provide support to the local small hotel sector. Local political inaction was seen as a major barrier to responding to climate change. The majority of hotels had difficulty relating to Lewin's model. Instead the results show managing change should be considered as a continuous process more than a set of distinct and discrete steps.