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Assessment Factors of Sustainable and Healthy Environment for

Hot Spring Hotels in Taiwan

Speakers:

Chen, Hsing-Hao

China University of Science and Technology, Taipei City, Taiwan (Republic of China),

Abstract: This paper collects the 78 initial assessment indicators of sustainability and health

of physical environment for hot spring hotels in Taiwan by literature reviewing, and

categorizes them into six assessment indicators groups as follows: “Sustainable Site”,

“Water Resource”, “Energy”, “Health Environment”, “Pollution Prevention & Solid Waste”

and “Facilities Maintenance & Safety Management”. Then we sieve 42 relatively important

assessment factors from the initial indicators which belong to the appropriate indicators

groups with the Fuzzy Delphi Method and collect the opinions from 40 experts. The

specialties of the experts include “Building Environment”, “Water Resource”, “Tourism

Management”, “Hot Spring Resource” and “Sustainable & Healthy Environment”.

According to the experts’ opinions, we get the priority of assessment factors for each

indicator group. The result provides the reference for the owners and authorities to manage

the physical environment and to reach the sustainability and health of the hot spring hotels in

Taiwan.

Sustainability, Health, Physical Environment, Assessment Factor, Hot Spring Hotel

Introduction

Because of the location of Taiwan, the border of the Eurasian Plate and the Philippine Plate,

the complicated geology results in plentiful hot spring resources. With the release of social

environment and the people pay more attention to the leisure activities and health promotion,

the development of hot spring tourist industry is blooming. A great deal of effort has been

made on the hot spring quality and hotel management. What seems to be lacking, however, is

a comprehensive assessment tool for sustainability and health of hot spring hotels’ physical

environment.

The research tries to study the experts’ acknowledge about the importance priority of the

environment of hot springs in the viewpoints of sustainability. The aim is to provide the

reference for the authorities, the owners and the designers of hot spring hotels in Taiwan.

Methods

This paper gets the initial assessment factors of sustainability and health of physical

environment for hot spring hotels in Taiwan by literature reviewing. We collect the initial

assessment factors from the review of the literature about “assessment tools of sustainable and

healthy buildings”, “assessment tools of green and ecology hotels”, “assessment tools of hot

spring environment” and “assessment tools of living space” etc. Furthermore, we integrate

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and filter the initial assessment factors and categorize them into six assessment indicators

groups as follows: “Sustainable Site”, “Water Resource”, “Energy”, “Health Environment”,

“Pollution Prevention & Solid Waste” and “Facilities Maintenance & Safety Management”.

The analysis and summary are shown as Figure 1.

Figure 1 Forming of Assessment Indicator Groups

The Assessment Tools of

Sustainable Building,

Green Hotel and House

The Assessment Tools of

Hot Spring

Response to the Sustainability of Site

Ecology

Water Resource

Energy

Transportation and Traffic

Healthy Indoor Environment

Green Diet

Disaster Prevention, Safety and Barrier Free Environment

Pollution Prevention and Solid Waste

Resource and Materials

Facility Maintenance and Safety Management

Maintenance, Operation and Innovation

Hot Spring Environment and Safety Management

Healthy Spa Environment

Hot Spring Facilities Maintenance and Management

Sustainable Application of Hot Spring Resource

Sustainable Environment of Site

Water Resource

Energy

Healthy Environment

Pollution Prevention and Solid Waste

Facility Maintenance and Safety Management

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We use Fuzzy Delphi method to collect the experts’ opinion about hot spring hotels. There

were a total of 40 expert questionnaires distributed. The experts can be divided into two

groups: “the academic group” and “the authority group”. The academic group includes 10 hot

spring experts, 9 experts whose speciality is architecture and 6 experts who specialize in

leisure industry. The authority group includes 15 competent authorities from the north,

middle, south and east regions of Taiwan. The total response rate is 82.5% and the effective

rate is 75%.

Results and Discussion

In order to get the individual importance evaluation of each assessment factor from all experts,

the analysis of Reliability and Validity had been conducted. This study adopted the

“Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test ” to execute the reliability test for normal distribution and the

pass rate of all initial indicators is 91%. That means all experts’ opinions conformed the trend

of consistency. The “Experience Rules” is applied to enforce the validity test for central

tendency and the pass rate of all initial indicators is 87%. It presents the opinions from all

experts meeting the central tendency.

First of all, we choesd 10% disagreement of all 30 effective experts questionnaires to be the

threhold and deleted 20 initial indicators which were not agreed by more than three experts.

Secondly, we calculated the triangular fuzzy number of each remaining initial indicator and

presented the consensus of all experts by Simple Centroid Method. The triangular fuzzy

number of each initial indicator is composed of “the minimum weight”, “the geometric mean”

and “ the maximum weight”. Then the triangular fuzzy number was transferred to the

arithmetic mean and it would be the threshold of the initial indicator. The triangular fuzzy

number of all initial indicators is (2.92, 7.26, 9.80), and the arithmetic mean of them is 6.66.

So those initial indicators will be eliminated while their triangular fuzzy numbers are less than

6.66.

The indicator group of “Sustainable Environment of Site” should emphasize on “The

Sensitivity of the Site”, “Disturbance and Impact on the Site” and “Separate Drainage of

Spring Water and Miscellaneous”(Shown in Table 1). The indicator group of “Water

Resource” should emphasize on “Control of Hot Spring Flow”, “Management of Water Use

Efficiency” and “The Use of Water-saving Appliances” (Shown in Table 2). The indicator

group of “Energy” should emphasize on “Natural Ventilation”, “Good Shading Design” and

“High-efficiency Lighting Control System” (Shown in Table 3). The indicator group of

“Healthy Environment” should emphasize on “Prohibition of Toxic Substances”, “Injection

Location of Original Spring Water” and “The Overflow Device of Bath and Storage Tank”

(Shown in Table 4). The indicator group of “Pollution Prevention and Solid Waste” should

emphasize on “Environmental Sanitation Agents”, “Dedicated Positions for Hazardous Waste

Storage” and “Avoiding Plastic or Excessive Packaging Products” (Shown in Table 5). The

indicator group of “Facility Maintenance and Safety Management” should emphasize on

“Safety Inspection of Emergency Fire Fighting Equipment”, “Safety Management to Prevent

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Leakage and Explosion of Electrical Equipment” and “Structure and Facilities Security

Check” (Shown in Table 6).

According to the experts’ opinions, we finally sieved the 42 assessment factors from the

initial indicators and get the priority of assessment factors for each indicator group. The

framework of assessment indicator groups and assessment factorss of hot spring Hotel is

shown as Figure 2.

：Dis≧3, ：Fuz≧6.66 and Dis＜3 (Dis: Disagreement, Mi: Minimum, Ave: the geometric mean,

Ma: Maximum, Fuz: the arithmetic mean of the triangular fuzzy numbers Table 1 Fuzzy Numbers and Screening of Initial Indicators in the Group of “Sustainable Environment of Site”

Table 2 Fuzzy Numbers and Screening of Initial Indicators in the Group of “Water Resource”

Table 3 Fuzzy Numbers and Screening of Initial Indicators in the Group of “Energy”

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Table 4 Fuzzy Numbers and Screening of Initial Indicators in the Group of “Healthy Environment”

Table 5 Fuzzy Numbers and Screening of Initial Indicators in the Group of “Pollution Prevention and Solid

Waste”

Table 6 Fuzzy Numbers and Screening of Initial Indicators in the Group of “Facility Maintenance and Safety Management”

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Figure 2 The Framework of Assessment Indicator Groups and Assessment Factorss of Hot Spring Hotel

Sustainable Environment of Site

The Generation of Pollutants

Disturbance and Impact on the Site

Separate Drainage of Spring Water and Miscellaneous

The Sensitivity of the Site

Water Resource The Use of Water-saving Appliances

Energy

Control of Hot Spring Flow

Management of Water Use Efficiency

Efficiency of Energy Use

Installation of heat recovery or insulation system

Reasonable Lighting

Natural Ventilation

High-efficiency Lighting Control System

Indoor noise control Healthy Environment

Healthy Indoor Air Quality Management Plan

Springs Temperature Control of Storage Tank, inlet and pipeline

Healthy and Safe Indoor and Outdoor Environment

Prohibition of Toxic Substances

The Overflow Device of Bath and Storage Tank

Injection Location of Original Spring Water

Cleaning and Disinfection Frequency of Hot Spring and Sewage Treatment Facilities

Ensuring of Spring Quality

Legionellosis Prevention

Pollution Prevention and Solid Waste

The proper design of the bath, overflow tank and storage tank

Installation of Non-closed Drainage Holes in the Bath

Safety Management of Gas Releasing from the Hot Spring Wells

Legionellosis Prevention

Safety Management of Sensitive and Dangerous Area or Devices

The Disaster Prevention and Escape Facilities

Dedicated Positions for Hazardous Waste Storage

Environmental Sanitation Agents

Avoid Plastic or Excessive Packaging Products

Facility Maintenance and Safety Management

Equipment Safety Maintenance Management Plan

Management of Emergency Supply

Safety Management of Wire, Cable and Combustibles

Safety Management to Prevent Leakage and Explosion of Electrical Equipment

Equipment Renewal Feasibility

Safety Inspection of Emergency Fire Fighting Equipment

Structure and Facilities Security Check

Gas Stove, Range Hood Safety Inspection

Material Selection of Hot Spring Equipment

Hot Spring Equipment Safety Inspection

Good Shading Design

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Conclusions

This paper is aimed to sift the important assessment factors from the initial items according to

the consensus of experts. According to the review of the literature, we summarized the

assessment indicator into 6 groups: “Sustainable Site”, “Water Resource”, “Energy”,

“Health Environment”, “Pollution Prevention & Solid Waste” and “Facilities Maintenance &

Safety Management”. We can come to the conclusions as followed:

1. By Fuzzy Delphi Method, the study filtered 42 assessment factors which can be

catagorized into the appropriate assessment indicator groups, and we also get the

importance priority of the assessment factors.

2. The top three assessment indicator groups which have more factors are “Health

Environment”, “Facilities Maintenance & Safety Management” and “Energy”.

3. The “Health Environment” group focuses on the prevention of toxic substances, the

quality of original spring water and the healthy factors of built environment. The

“Facilities Maintenance & Safety Management” group focuses on the facilities operation

management, safety management and disasters prevention. The “Energy” group focuses

on the high-efficiency lighting control system, shading design and natural ventilation.

The results of this paper can be the database of the assessment tool for hot spring hotels’

environment and provide the key points for designing and managing the hot spring hotels in

Taiwan.

Reference

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