Abstract:

Under the global effort to cope with climate change, tourism has become an important and leading industry for the low carbon transition of economy in many countries and regions. As one of the core branches of the tourism industry, the tourist accommodation sector is playing a key role in this process. This study reviewed the related literature from the following three aspects: the necessity, barriers, and countermeasures of saving energy and reducing the carbon emissions of the accommodation sector. The review found that numerous studies have shown that the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the tourist accommodation sector are very high, and there is a large space for improvements. The review of the barriers and countermeasures for saving energy and reducing carbon emissions in the sector was focused on three main stakeholders: the government, the industry, and customers. At last, we summarized the methods of accounting the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the tourist accommodation sector. Based on this summary, we discussed the drawbacks in the existing research, and pointed out the directions for further research. Generally, some achievements in the research of energy saving and carbon emission reduction of the accommodation sector have been made internatinally, but such research is lagging behind in China. Next, we should carry out the following research based on the international experiences and the actual situation in China. We need to strength the study of energy consumption and carbon emissions of all forms of accommodation services to understand the research subjects comprehensively, determine the measuring framework and indicators in order to establish the accounting system, and extend the research on the topic from doing the subdivision studies in stages, types and regions.

Key words: tourist accommodation industry, energy saving and carbon emission reduction, energy consumption, carbon emissions, research progres