The establishment of energy consumption quota is an important project for promoting the development of building energy efficiency in China. This research focused on the establishment of energy consumption quota of four and five star luxury hotels in Hainan Province, one of the international traveling destinations. Firstly, the theoretical analysis of energy consumption quota included data acquisition, normalization of energy use index and the statistical analysis methods for the calculation of the energy consumption quota. Subsequently, detailed information of 19 hotels plus general energy consumption data of 54 hotels was treated as the sample data for calculating energy consumption quota. According to correlation analysis, energy consumption per unit area was identified to be the most suitable index to represent the energy consumption level, and was combined with the energy consumption normalized by degree-day method to obtain the normalized energy use index (EUInorm). Also, the energy consumption quota interval of four and five star luxury hotel buildings in Hainan in the initial implementation stage was identified as 69.23-96.75 kWh/m(2) in accordance with comparison of the results calculated by statistical methods. Finally, proposals were put forward about the implementation of building energy consumption quota. (c) 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.