GREEN MANAGEMENT IMPLEMENTATION: A CASE OF THE BULGARIAN HOTEL MARKET

This research article focuses on the ecological operation of accommodation services in Bulgaria. The aim of this article is to evaluate the application of various green management elements and measures in selected hotels in Bulgaria, namely in the cities of Sofia and Varna. The research will pay attention to the implementation of individual green measures in hotel operations as well as a comparison between hotel categories and hotels in the two cities in terms of the application of green measures. Running an environmentally friendly hotel can have several positive effects. It significantly manifests itself in the area of marketing – it creates an image, has an effect on current and prospective guests, and defines the positioning of the hotel. It also impacts the economic and operational aspects, with ecological elements having the potential to reduce hotels’ operating costs. The societal impact of running hotels in an environmentally friendly fashion lies in resource conservation and ensuring environmental sustainability. This research was carried out using mixed research methods, combining semi-structured interviews with hotel management staff in Varna (n = 90) and Sofia (n = 96). The total sample of participating hotels represented 81.6% of hotels in the two cities. The interviews were complemented with a questionnaire survey, which focused on the application of environmentally friendly solutions in hotel operations. In the data analysis stage, the methods of correspondence analysis, the ANOVA test and the Kruskal-Wallis test were used. The results suggest that the higher the hotel category, the stronger the trend to use environmentally friendly methods in running hotels. The research also found that there were differences between the level at which green measures were applied in hotel operations in the two cities. The research results are applicable in practice by national professional associations that support resource conservation and thus affect the entire hospitality industry.