Page 1 Introduction Malaysia’s drive to develop a world-class infrastructure driven it to be one of the top five in a closely watched leading emerging markets (New Straits Times, 2016). Tourism industry is the third highest Gross National Income (GNI) contributor to the country’s Gross Domestic Production (Lean and Tang, 2010). In order for Malaysia to sustain its economic well-being, it has to continue to attract tourist arrival to the country. Accommodation sector in particular hotels in Malaysia has played a vital role in generating income for the country. Hotel sectors are the drivers of growth for travel and tourism industry in Malaysia. In Malaysia, the hospitality industry has experienced a positive increase consistent with the growth of global hospitality industry in recent years(Ministry of Tourism Malaysia, 2009). Despite the slower growth of Malaysia economy due to global economic crisis, the tourism industry has rebounded quickly. The performance of hotel operational system can have strong influence on the firms, the employee, and the customers (Tsaur and Lin, 2004; Barros, 2005). Therefore, the hospitality firms shouldbe in touch with the markets in terms of recent trends and changes (Dupre and Lane, 1997). They need to have thorough understanding of hospitality industry so that they can build competitive strategy(Claver and Pereira, 2006). The research objective is to find out how hotel organisations conduct environmental scanning activities in collecting, compiling, cataloguing, storing, retrieving and disseminating information for decision making purposes. The research further explores the possible patterns of environmental scanning process among the hotels. This would answer how hotels conduct their environmental scanning process. Literature Review In a related study by Hough and White (2004), who viewed environmental scanning as a process of (i) identifying, (ii) collecting, (iii) processing, and (iv) translating information about external environmental www.arjonline.org American Research Journal of Business and Management ISSN-2379-1047 Volume 4, Issue 1, 10 Pages Research Article Open Access Environmental Scanning Practices in an Emerging Market: A Case in Malaysian Hotels Haliza Mohd Said a *, Sayeed Siddiq b , Nor KhomarIshak b a UNITAR International University b University Tun Abdul Razak lizasaid@unitar.my Abstract: The purpose of this study is to investigate how hotels in Malaysia conduct Environmental Scanning activities in order to manage changing market structures. Environmental Scanning activities ofer a strategic information approach whereby the organisation will be able to store information, recognize prospects for growth and discover ways to improve operational competence. A qualitative approach was adopted using in-depth interviews on eight 5-star hotels in Malaysia. The finding provides a better understanding of the environmental scanning activities and the types of information collected by hotels in Malaysia. It was evident from the findings, the type of industry afects the content of what was scanned. With this understanding of the environmental scanning in the hotel industry, the top-level management is able to enhance their decision- making capabilities in strategic planning. Keywords: Environmental Scanning, Business Environment, Scanning System, Malaysian Hotels, Emerging Market