Roles of tourism enterprises on destination sustainability: case of Antalya, Turkey

Tourists and tourism enterprises need to play an active role to overcome the environmental issues because global environmental issues (climate change, impurity, depletion of ozone layer, so on) and adverse effect of these issues on nature has been increased. In addition, tourists and tourism enterprises need to be informed about natural surroundings. At the same time, tourism enterprises should offer environmental-friendly products and services to green tourists in order to be sustainable. In this context, the paper examines and evaluates the importance of environmental-friendly implementation of accommodation firms in terms of sustainability of source of destination. In the paper, impacts of strategic implementation on sustainability and profitability of a hotel using environmental-friendly implementations and operating in Antalya Province is examined. Results have shown that green hotels have high awareness among the tourists. Thus, these hotels have sustainable competitive advantages. These hotels also have positive impact on the destination sustainability. (C) 2014 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd.