How can hotels practice what they preach when it comes to sustainability?
As sustainable living is entering the mainstream, more and more tourists are viewing an eco-friendly ethos as a priority when it comes to booking hotels; in 2017, TUI found that 2/3 of holidaymakers are willing ‘to make trade-offs to benefit the environment’. The UN World Tourism Organization predicts that by 2020 there will be 1.6 billion eco-inspired trips taken.
So far, many hotels have projected their eco-conscience onto their guests, leaving signs reminding them to turn off lights and to conserve water when showering. While these prompts indicate that hotel has an eco-friendly mindset, they are oftentimes perceived as projecting hotels’ problems onto guests. Rather than lip service, hotels are increasingly expected to make genuine changes in what they offer guests to indicate their genuine environmental concern.
That’s what a 2016 study in Canada found; if hotels want their customers to ‘go green’ (that is, follow their handy tips and tricks left in hotel bedrooms and bathrooms), then they need to do it themselves.
As many hotels are shifting their focus to respond to the demand of eco-centric consumerism, the question is, how can hotels make the move toward sustainability in a genuine way, both for their industry and their consumers?
Sustainable hospitality expert Dr Willy Legrand has outlined trends that the industry can implement that goes further than lip service, such as eliminating single-use plastic within the hotel, creating a paperless hotel and cutting down on food waste by sourcing food locally or even growing food onsite.
While such efforts are sure not only to impress but to make a genuinely positive impact on the environment, their expense and scale mean they are oftentimes are difficult for hotels to implement and see real results from in a short space of time. Such slow – but steady and necessary – the pace of change means that guests may not feel the full efforts made by hotels to move toward sustainability, which can, in turn, be mistaken for no effort at all.
There’s a middle ground between the two extremes whereby hotels can communicate their steady move toward sustainability without appearing self-congratulatory or disingenuous. Making amenities guests eco-friendly means that guests will appreciate their gifts twofold: feeling valued as a consumer and safe in the knowledge that the hotel they’ve chosen supports their eco-friendly values.
Alongside water and waste conservation, eco-friendly amenities are one of the key sustainable initiatives being adopted by the hotel industry: that’s plastic-free soaps and shampoos, recyclable packaging and bulk dispensers instead of individually packaged items.
This was central to the Canadian study’s findings. The study ran across both high end and budget hotels. Every hotel asked its customers to go green, use less water and electricity, but half the hotels provided their customers with a plastic toothbrush and half provided a bamboo toothbrush.
The customers that were left with a plastic toothbrush not only did not follow the hotel’s advice but used more electricity, water, napkins and towels than they would have if no note was left. The request was perceived as disingenuous and having an underlying profit motive.
Conversely, the hotels which left the bamboo toothbrush for their guests found that water, energy, napkin and towel usage was reduced as the customer’s tangible perception of the hotel as leading by example influenced their behaviour.
Many companies that produce sustainable products are supporting hotels’ switch to ethically sourced items.
CMO of Brushbox, a UK-based company which produces bamboo toothbrushes, Jon Wright, says that the hotel industry has a key role to play in shifting attitudes towards sustainable living.
"It's simple really. If you want people to think of your business as a sustainable company, who is doing what you can for environmental impact, then you need to practice what you preach. There's no goodwill gained from simply doing the bare minimum, everyone should be recycling and cutting plastic use. It's important for the hospitality sector to look to replace tired process and products with eco-alternatives'.
The commercial shift towards sustainability, it seems, is only achievable when it is industry, rather than consumer-led, and when hotels and other business pre-empt customers wants and needs.
Sources:
https://www.cbc.ca/player/play/2694244146
https://businessblog.trivago.com/sustainable-hospitality-trends-eco-friendly-hotel-tips/