A key sector for many economies, Tourism is a rapidly growing industry including many aspects, such as accommodation services.
January 30th 2024
Sector Overview
The Accommodation Services sector in the ecoinvent database comprises fifty datasets, covering the construction and operation of various comfort categories of tourist accommodation facilities, as well as the necessary consumer goods, including furniture and appliances. The geographies covered are Brazil (BR) and Peru (PE).
Sector Highlights
Accommodation Construction
The database contains data on the construction of various comfort categories, including hostel, budget, upmarket, and luxury hotel. These datasets integrate both the material inputs (e.g., concrete, plywood, door, window) used for building the facilities, as well as for maintaining and decommissioning them. To properly represent the maintenance of such facilities, the accommodation construction datasets in the database integrate the amounts of materials used, which are adjusted based on the lifetime of the materials compared with the building’s life cycle, which is assumed to be seventy-five years. At the same time, the datasets integrate the waste materials as by-products in order to model decommissioning.
All information regarding input materials has been compiled based on hotel surveys, review of plans and blueprints by architects, and has been complemented with secondary data.
Accommodation Operation
The database contains data on the operation of various comfort categories, including hostel, budget, upmarket, and luxury hotel. All datasets use the functional unit of one “guest night” (one night per person). This is the most widely used functional unit providing a way to compare different sizes and comfort categories of accommodation services. The occupancy rate is sourced from the conducted accommodation services surveys.
Accommodation operation datasets integrate the input of the building construction, consumer goods as well as utilities. The inputs of consumer goods and their regular refurbishments are adjusted based on their lifetime compared with the operation lifetime of the accommodation facility.
Consumer Goods
The database includes information on items present or utilized in various types of rooms as well as common spaces, such as microwave ovens, washing machines, furniture, and mattresses. Each item is represented by production and operation datasets, accounting for the disposal of the items by incorporating waste materials as by-products.
Details regarding the required consumer goods have been gathered through hotel surveys and supplemented with secondary data.
Data Providers
The suppliers of life cycle inventory datasets for activities within the Accommodation Services sector include:
- Viachaslau Filimonau, Independent consultant
- Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
- Pontifical Catholic University of Peru
Editors
- Valentina Castellani (Main Editor), LCA expert in the Tourism sector, Italy
- Sirje Vares (Co-Editor), VTT – Technical Research Center of Finland, Finland
Relevant Sources
Filimonau V., Santa Rosa M., Santana Franca L., Cánovas Creus A., Mattos Ribeiro G., Molnarova J., Geldres Piumatti R., (2018). Life Cycle Inventories of Tourism Accommodation Services – Latin America. ecoinvent Association, Zürich, Switzerland. Accessible at SRI project results (registration required).