Sustainability

This is a great question and one closely linked to our recent Sustainability Leaders Project panel question - whether sustainable tourism leads to more and better jobs. The panel's conclusion was that there is a notable relationship between sustainable tourism and jobs, mostly in terms of staff retention (because of more caring, fairer workplaces and a stronger sense of commitment and shared values).

Green teams!! I hear comments like "we tried that once" or "it's the last 15 minutes of our safety committee meeting" or "our executive committee is the green team." None of those is a solution to culture (or sustainability, quite frankly).

When working with hospitality clients on sustainability we found one key success factor: a healthy organization. Without an healthy organization, sustainability cannot be embedded into the corporate culture. This might then keep efforts narrow and superficial.

To avoid falling into the „greenwashing trap” business need to be transparent, honest and modest. Since “greening” is not the core business of most tour-operators, hotels or resorts, investing in the wrong project or a poor strategy might turn into a slippery slope to reputation damage.

As Xavier Font suggested in his interview with the Sustainability Leaders Project: "Put the customer at the centre of the sustainability experience, and tell them how they will have more fun. But do it honestly and without exaggeration." I think this sums it up nicely.

Greenwashing mainly involves claiming to be sustainable or being an eco-hotel which usually does not make any impact on the guests. The best & most effective to way communicate sustainability is by providing it is as a part of service quality.

I believe solar PV systems should be a high priority, to relieve dependence on fossil fuels while reducing Opex. I'll go with waste heat recovery, IE using a heat exchanger to preheat water entering hot water tanks, by using the exhaust heat from either HVAC or diesel generators, etc.

It is comfortable to believe that technological development will deliver solutions to the pressing challenges of today and tomorrow - without us changing along the way. However, we need to understand that business, as usual, is not an option at all.

1) Renewable energy, because everything pretty much hinges on it... 2) A digital thermostat, for those archaic hotels that still don't have one - let's not forget that while we need to advance more technology and solutions, we also need to get the majority of the world's hotel stock to get in the game with basic proven solutions...

Findings from research that we conducted in the Netherlands suggest that guests are increasing willing to support or even push for sustainability. However, they also argue that hosts should take responsibility first. On the other side, hosts repeatedly stated that guests are generally not interested in sustainability.

I will only address part of the question, in my view, it is also important to see which actor does what, at what point in time. We can easily recognize certain stages of innovation in the process towards a more sustainable industry.

Basically, several factors always play a role. In the hotel and hospitality industry, there are always new trends and customer needs. Sustainability is increasingly becoming the focus of the industry's increasing demand. But if the hotelier or restaurateur does not recognize this and is not convinced that he should be more committed to environmental and climate protection in order to remain marketable, then the processes will not change.

Here are a couple of thoughts from my perspective: Too much opacity in the brand-ownership model. Brands make the commitments with little or no teeth at the operational/ownership level. Owners can benefit from the halo effect of corporate announcements without (full, immediate, consistent) implementation.

As a sustainability consultant to the hotel industry, there is very slow movement toward sustainable hospitality. The major hotel brands that have set goals do so for the properties they own and manage, which is perhaps 10% of the hotel inventory world-wide.

The referenced ITP scenarios are based on the clear forecast that the hotel supply will grow immensely in the coming 2 decades. Sustainability needs to be addressed from the beginning of the hotel project, even before operator selection when initial feasibility is done and/or capital investment is decided.