© Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 2002 Food Service Technology, 2, pp. 155–161 155 Current environmental issues: a study of Sinai and Red Sea hotels The hospitality industry is a major user of land, gen- erates a considerable amount of waste and consumes significant quantities of water, energy, food, cleaning materials and other resources in its routine operations (Wei & Ruys 1997). The industry should therefore seri- ously start to consider their role in environmental issues, as future prosperity depends more and more on the natural environment (Wei & Ruys 1997). It needs to be a ‘naturally green’ business (Porrit 1995), par- ticularly, as environmental concerns have become an important influence in consumer travel and purchase decisions (Litvin 1996). However, until the early 1960 there was little inter- est in environmental management and the development of environmental associations in the food service and hospitality industry was very slow prior to the International Hotels Environment Initiative. The first practical outcome was a manual on environmental management for hotels (IHEI 1993) followed by ini- tiatives established by the Hotel, Catering and Interna- tional Management Association (HCIMA) and the World Travel and Tourism Council (HCIMA 1994). The International Hotel Association (IHA) continues to encourage hotels to develop programs to improve and protect the environment, and in conjunction with the United Nations Environment Program, produced an ‘Environmental Toolkit’ aimed at helping hotels set up their own, individually tailored program (IHA 1995). In some countries, Local Tourism Heritage Trusts have been created which are voluntary mechanisms whereby Editorial review Correspondence: Hanan S. Kattara, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels c/o 394 El Gueish Street, Zizinia, Plaza Hotel, Alexandria. Egypt. E-mail: hkattara@plazaegypt.com Keywords: Egypt, environment, hotels Abstract Environmental issues are now a concern in many industries including the food service and hospitality industries. This paper examines environmental issues in hotels in the newly developed tourist areas of the Sinai and Red Sea. Various environmental issues were studied including environmental practices, managers attitudes towards envi- ronmental issues, future environmental practices and anticipated hotel profitability resulting from applying environmental practices. Results show an opportunity to promote environmental practices in hotels and a high level of awareness and will- ingness of managers to preserve the environment. Introduction Major changes have taken place over the past decade in the relationship between human beings and the envi- ronment. The impact of business operations on the natural environment has been a public concern and a topic of research for many years. To date, the focus of environmental impact research has been almost exclu- sively focused on manufacturing industries and service industries have been neglected, despite the fact that economies of developed nations are mostly made up of services (Foster et al. 2000). In Egypt, the government invested heavily in tourism during the 1980s, especially after the Peace agreement, and the hospitality industry grew at a very rapid pace. During seven years (1985–92), Egypt’s tourist accom- modation stock grew from under 25 000–55 000 rooms (WTO 1994). The number of rooms continues to grow reaching approximately 124 000 rooms in 2001 and today, there are more than 104000 rooms under construction (Wahab 2002). Due to the high tourism demands and increasing numbers of both national and overseas visitors who come to enjoy, amongst other things, the underwater beauty, this accelerated expansion is concentrated mainly in the Sinai and the Red Sea areas. As a result of this expan- sion, environmental concerns have become important, and issues such as the high cost of water and the need to preserve natural attractions, together with other environmental problems, causes for concern. H. S. Kattara 1 and A. W. Zeid 2 1 Faculty of Tourism and Hotels and 2 Faculty of Agriculture, c/o 394 El Gueish Street, Zizinia, Plaza Hotel, Alexandria, Egypt