Evaluating the sustainability of hotels using multi-criteria decision-making methods

Sustainable tourism has become a global concern in recent years. An approach is proposed to evaluate the sustainability of hotels and to compare their real actions and promotions. Following a study of relevant literature, a set of criteria so-called ‘green hotels’ were proposed. Multi-criteria decision-making methods were then used, including the best-worst method to calculate the weights of all criteria, and the fuzzy technique-for-order-of-preference-by-similarity-to-ideal-solution method was then implemented to rank sustainability performance. The proposed model was applied to evaluate five hotels in Vietnam. The results showed that the criterion named ‘green policy and regulation’ played the most significant role in the sustainability practice of hotels. Sensitivity analysis was also applied to validate the research framework and eliminate the effects of bias. The proposed model is recommended for use in various other fields.