Seasonality and Efficiency of the Hotel Industry in the Balearic Islands: Implications for Economic and Environmental Sustainability Sáez Fernández, Francisco Javier Jiménez Hernández, Ignacio Ostos Rey, María Del Sol Seasonality Efficiency Hotel Spain Data envelopment analysis (DEA) Directional distance functions (DDFs) Economic sustainability Environmental sustainability Tourism seasonality generates negative environmental and economic impacts. This paper analyzes the effects of seasonality on the efficiency of the hotel industry in the Balearic Islands (Spain). To that end, a sample of hotel establishments is divided into two groups (those that close down during the off-season and those that do not). Data envelopment analysis (DEA) is applied to assess the radial efficiency of each of the selected hotels; then, directional distance functions (DDFs) are used to measure the degree of efficiency with which these hotels use each of the inputs that form part of their production process. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first time that the said technique has been applied to the hospitality industry to examine the effects of seasonality. The results of this study suggest that those establishments that do not close down their operations are markedly more efficient than the ones that do. Moreover, they are more efficient in the use of each input. Therefore, a reduction in the levels of tourism seasonality would improve the economic sustainability of the hotels and reduce the environmental pressure at peak times. Finally, in line with the theoretical hypotheses formulated, the results regarding the specific efficiency levels for each input show that the greater the degree of flexibility with which these inputs are used, the higher the efficiency. 2020-06-26T11:55:07Z 2020-06-26T11:55:07Z 2020-04 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Sáez Fernández, Francisco Javier; Jiménez Hernández, Ignacio; Ostos Rey, María Del Sol. Seasonality and Efficiency of the Hotel Industry in the Balearic Islands: Implications for Economic and Environmental Sustainability. Sustainability 2020, 12, 3506; [doi:10.3390/su12093506] http://hdl.handle.net/10481/62738 10.3390/su12093506 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/es/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 3.0 España MDPI