Carbon dioxide emissions generated by energy consumption of hotels and homestay facilities in Taiwan

• CO2 emission values were calculated and analyzed for several hotel types in Taiwan.
• Hotels with higher service levels can be characterized with higher CO2 emissions per person-night.
• Strategies involving tourist decision making and hotel management would be able to mitigate CO2 emissions in great extent.

In the field of the tourism, hotels and homestay facilities account for considerable amounts of energy consumption and CO2 emissions. This study presents an investigation conducted on the CO2 emissions from four types of hotel in Taiwan. According to the results, the average CO2 emissions of international tourist hotels, standard tourist hotels, general hotels, and homestay facilities are 28.9, 19.2, 12.5, and 6.3 kg-CO2/person-night, respectively. Hotels with higher service levels produce higher average CO2 emissions per person-night. Analytical results indicate that increasing stays at hotels with low CO2 emissions (such as homestay facilities and general hotels), accommodating more guests together per room, and enhancing energy usage efficiency, can effectively reduce hotel CO2 emissions without reducing the total number of guests. The results of this study may be applied to CO2 reduction programmes for tourists, hotel enterprises, and contribute toward the formulation of government policy in Taiwan.