ECO-innovation and economic crisis: a comparative analysis of environmental good practices and labour productivity in the Spanish hotel industry

In recent years, respect for the environment has been taken into account by tourists as a factor in their purchasing decisions. The concept of eco-innovation has gained an important role in adapting the tourism product to this new demand. Using a previous database already compiled by the authors, this paper has two aims: to address the effect of implementing environmental measures on labour productivity in the Andalusian hotel industry; and to show how its implementation has evolved during a period of deep economic crisis in all the productive sectors in Spain (2008-2012). For this purpose, the variable ei was defined as indicator by which to measure the eco-innovation and was introduced in a standard Cobb-Douglas production function. The two estimates of the production function for 2008 and 2012 show that the introduction of eco-innovative measures had a positive and significant influence on labour productivity, despite the fact of the economic crisis reduced the productivity growth observed for each additional eco-innovative practice implemented by the hotels from 8.15% in 2008-7.45% in 2012.