Ethics in Hospitality
Business Ethics in Hospitality
Brian Scott Angerer
University of Phoenix
In the hospitality industry ethical issues abound both for the business itself and the community at large. Business ethics is a complicated subject that can be described as, the behavior that a business adheres to in its daily dealings with the world. The ethics of a particular business can be diverse. They apply not only to how the business interacts with the world at large, but also to their one-on-one dealings with a single customer (wiseGEEK, 2009). Now the hospitality industry in general and hotels specifically have seem to be behind most businesses when it comes to ethics in concern to going green, human rights, diversity, human resources, and hotel relationships. When it comes to the environment, from a business ethics standpoint, are hotels doing enough to help the environment? This question is at the heart of an ethical dilemma concerning the hospitality industry. Is a green program such as bedding enough? Do hotels do enough to conserve water, electricity, and gas? These are very important issues to the world, but as a business the expense does not always calculate in the cost to the rest of the world when changing out a toilet to low flow, or creating a save the planet bedding program, or using fluorescent bulbs and energy efficient air conditioners. These changes to a hotel are very expensive undertakings, and again the cost to the business owners does not always include the benefit to the world in their decision to implement or not to implement. Human rights, is another area where hotels have ethical issues to deal with. Some ways that human rights issues are ethically affecting hotels include,
Brian Scott Angerer
University of Phoenix
In the hospitality industry ethical issues abound both for the business itself and the community at large. Business ethics is a complicated subject that can be described as, the behavior that a business adheres to in its daily dealings with the world. The ethics of a particular business can be diverse. They apply not only to how the business interacts with the world at large, but also to their one-on-one dealings with a single customer (wiseGEEK, 2009). Now the hospitality industry in general and hotels specifically have seem to be behind most businesses when it comes to ethics in concern to going green, human rights, diversity, human resources, and hotel relationships. When it comes to the environment, from a business ethics standpoint, are hotels doing enough to help the environment? This question is at the heart of an ethical dilemma concerning the hospitality industry. Is a green program such as bedding enough? Do hotels do enough to conserve water, electricity, and gas? These are very important issues to the world, but as a business the expense does not always calculate in the cost to the rest of the world when changing out a toilet to low flow, or creating a save the planet bedding program, or using fluorescent bulbs and energy efficient air conditioners. These changes to a hotel are very expensive undertakings, and again the cost to the business owners does not always include the benefit to the world in their decision to implement or not to implement. Human rights, is another area where hotels have ethical issues to deal with. Some ways that human rights issues are ethically affecting hotels include,
References: Roner, Lisa. (2009). Why Has North America 's Hotel Companies Been Slow to Adopt Responsible Tourism. greenlodgingnews. Retrieved August 9, 2009, from http://www.greenlodgingnews.com/Content.aspx?id=418 wiseGEEK. (2009). What is Business Ethics? Retrieved August 9, 2009, from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-business-ethics.htm