Exploring circular economy in the hospitality industry

This paper explores the role of Circular Economy (CE) in the hospitality industry, namely in hotels and restaurants. Today’s hospitality consumers have become more ecologically conscious than ever before, and the demand for eco-friendly products and services has grown. This has imposed many hospitality companies into the adoption of Green Practices (GP) and Circular Economy (CE) principles. In particular, CE has been gaining popularity among governments and academia. However, current research shows that CE principles are being mainly discussed and applied in production and manufacturing. The application of CE principles into services, particularly in the hospitality industry, seem to receive little attention. The paper presents the CE concept and discusses it from the perspectives of both companies and consumers and debates the adoption of green practices by the hospitality industry. Our findings indicated that the consumer awareness of sustainable issues has a direct impact on companies’ adoption of CE and GP practices. The paper also identifies that green practices are gaining increased attention in the hospitality industry, and that a wide variety of green practices are already being adopted. However, the role of CE in hospitality industry appears to be uncovered by current research and obscured in green practices. The paper, therefore, identifies a research gap and calls for further investigation in the application of CE in the hospitality industry.