HOTELS
Luxury Travel Insights Study, which surveyed 2,725 travellers), 80 per cent of these travellers agree it is important “that the hotel provides recommendations of experiences that are not detrimental to the local community”. A similar proportion says it matters to them that a hotel has “environmentally sustainable practices”.
NEW FACE OF SUSTAINABILITY Hotels have been urging us to re-use our towels for decades, but we’re moving beyond that. For example, the Fairmont St Andrews Bay hotel swapped disposable plastic water bottles for “specially-designed refillable water bottles”, preventing 55,000 bottles from being disposed of each year. Melia, meanwhile, made its debut as the third most sustainable hotel company (behind InterContinental and Hilton) in the world last year, according to sustainable investment agency RobecoSAM. Its research takes a wide-ranging view of sustainability – covering everything from corporate governance to environmental management. Notably, Melia came first in the environmental section. Why? The group works with independent, third-party specialists in sustainable tourism to manage and assess its programmes to mitigate the environmental impact of its hotels. There’s a similar message from Bankside
Hotel, an independent property in the heart of London and a member of the Marriott Autograph collection. Douglas McHugh, general manager, says it employed Bouteco, a sustainability consultancy, to work on its policy and “to help us make a positive change to our communities and the wider world”. The hotel now has solar panels on the roof, plus water-refilling stations throughout the hotel’s public areas “to avoid single-use plastic”. The hotel also plans to add beehives for honey production. Crucially, the drive for a sustainable
corporate culture goes beyond the hotel itself, and also goes beyond the basics of simply “be more green”. Bankside tries to work with “suppliers and organisations that help us to demonstrate a kinder, more sustainable approach to hospitality”. For example, Bankside’s coffee supplier gives 15 per cent of its revenue to homeless charity Crisis. The hotel also tries to recruit locally and uses employment agencies and charities that aim to support women returning to the workforce (Women Returners), and prisoners currently in training for hospitality qualifications (The Clink). A harder-nosed reader might ask: what’s the commercial benefit in all this? McHugh
100 MARCH/APRIL 2019
GOING BEYOND “GREENWASH”
carbon emissions by 2025
parent Whitbread wants to cut
50% t 5onnes
the amount Premier Inn
Premier Inn uses, saving it £20,000 a year in energy costs
the battery Gyle the weight of
“IN REACTION TO THE CONCERN for climate change and the questions being posed by buyers, hotel companies have made green initiatives part of their branding strategy,” notes David Mollov of hotel specialists TripBAM. “Many properties offer electric car charger stations, or preferred parking to electric vehicles.” Yet if corporate customers want to see a wider-ranging commitment to these issues – one that goes beyond the power of branding and changing the odd car parking space (“greenwash”, as it’s sometimes called) – then there needs to be an acceptance by customers that longer-term sustainability requires investment. “If travel buyers are serious about
prioritising green initiatives, they must be willing to pay a premium in the short term to demonstrate to the hotel community that this is important… originally when high-speed wifi was new, travellers paid for it and hoteliers installed the systems because to not have good wifi was to lose the traveller. Now that it is more ubiquitous and the systems are in place, it’s available for free. However, the initiatives were driven by the
traveller and travel buyer who were either willing to pay more to have wifi or not choose a hotel that didn’t have wifi. The same can be said for sustainability initiatives.”
Gyle Premier Inn, Edinburgh: a partly battery-powered hotel
buyingbusinesstravel.com
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