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practices in hotels, a quantitative approach was
employed through self-administered questionnaire.
Following simple screening questions, local travel-
ers at public airport terminals in central region of
Malaysia were chosen for data collection using
convenience sampling technique. A total of 288
valid responds were gathered and analyzed using
descriptive and correlation analysis.
Table 1. Mean score for perception of environmental
strategies in hotels.
4
FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
4.1
Demographic profile of the respondents
Prior to commencing for further statistical analy-
sis, all data were checked for irregularities, miss-
ing item, or unrealistic responses. Frequency test
was used against all demographic variables (such
as gender, age, and education background). Of
the 288 respondents, 51.1 percent were male as
opposed to 48.9 percent female. Moving to educa-
tion profile, over 90 percent of respondents own
at least undergraduate academic background;
hence it is supposed that they may have some basic
knowledge about environmental strategies and able
to respond well to the subject matter. Meanwhile,
a review of respondents' occupation revealed that
majority (45.1 percent) were corporate profession-
als, followed by 24.7 percent working in the gov-
ernment sector, while the remaining were either
self-employed or students. Because majority of the
respondents were classified as professionals, it is
assumed that those individuals could be business
travelers and have various hotel stay experiences.
Scale: 1
=
Strongly Disagree, 2
=
Disagree, 3
=
Moderate,
4
=
Slightly Agree, 5
=
Totally Agree.
evenly. As such, smokers might be less enthusiastic
with the idea of “smoke free zone” if it runs at the
entire guestrooms and all public areas. Interest-
ingly, respondents were not affected by eco-friendly
guestroom design; installation of reflective coating
and tubular skylight as those strategies were per-
ceived positively.
As compared with energy management, major-
ity gave a moderate score for water management
program in hotels. Although the range of mean
score was only between 3.38 and 3.98; an in-
depth analysis reveals that they were still inclined
towards favoring 3 out of 4 strategies listed. Again,
standard deviation for all items was high between
0.877 and 1.189 indicating varies feedback among
respondents. Installation of water efficient devices
in toilet was perceived most acceptable (
M
= 3.98)
compared to others. This may be because the strat-
egy has no significant changes to the way such
devices being used, thus there is none credible
reason to refuse such strategy. Similar argument
may be applied to the application of waste water in
hotel's flushing system. On the other hand, fewer
4.2
Perception on energy management program
in hotels
In response to the objective of the study, mean
score was used to indicate respondents' perception
on three categories of environmental practices: (1)
energy, (2) water management as well as (3) waste
reduction and environmental protection campaign
presented in Table 1. From the table, majority of
respondents were inclined towards agreeing with
energy management program in hotels. The use of
key card to enable electricity in guestroom received
the highest score (
M
0.740)
.
Con-
trarily, installation of automated (motion sensor)
air-conditioning system along hallway got the low-
est score. Being at a country with warm tropical
climate all year round; the idea of pursuing auto-
mated air-conditioning system may be perceived
as operationally ineffective. Although other energy
management strategies were viewed positively,
standard deviation value for all items was high;
between 0.740 and 0.938. This shows that not all
of them were willing to accept suggested strategies
=
4.27,
SD
=
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