In The U.S., Green Guests Are Coming
Welcoming them into an eco-friendly environment is vital, but questions remain on how to best market this and translate it into higher rates.
By Derek Gale -- Hotels, 12/31/2008 11:00:00 PM
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| A number of hotel companies have recently launched dedicated Web pages to communicate their environmental efforts to customers. |
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American consumers overwhelmingly consider themselves to be green, research shows.
According to a YPartnership-Travel Industry Association joint survey conducted in the middle of last year, more than eight in 10 Americans claim to be green or environmentally conscious. A more recent Yahoo! survey found that 77% of American consumers identified themselves as green. And a Deloitte U.S. survey from November shows that 80% of travelers expect lodging facilities to recycle, while 75% expect hotels to use energy-efficient lighting. Finally, an earlier Deloitte survey adds that nearly seven in 10 business travelers say they always turn off the lights when leaving a hotel room.
“People are looking to bring their green living habits to their travel experience and they are increasingly demanding more sustainable lodging options,” says Adam Weissenberg, Deloitte’s U.S. Tourism, Hospitality & Leisure leader.
“Hospitality executives looking to acquire new customers and grow in these difficult economic times can benefit over the long term with investments in sustainability initiatives, including retrofitting existing properties to achieve LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification and building new properties to LEED standards,” Weissenberg says.
At this point, there is no question that U.S. consumers are widely interested in environmentally friendly hotels and companies. The questions that remain are whether higher levels of eco-friendliness can drive higher rates, and how to best market efforts to be eco-friendly without getting lost in the vast sea of green messages surrounding consumers today.
As for driving rate, according to the YPartnership-Travel Industry Association study, nearly half of U.S. leisure travelers say they are willing to pay higher rates for the services provided by environmentally friendly travel providers, but of those willing to pay more, about 60% say they would only pay up to a 9% premium. And results from a Deloitte survey conducted last spring showed 28% of U.S. business travelers saying they would be willing to pay 10% more to stay in a green lodging facility.
While these numbers are by no means staggering, a 10% rate premium from a pretty significant cross-section of customers is not bad, especially given the current economy. But to get these guests to pay more, hotels and companies must convince their customers that doing so is worth it—and that is where marketing comes in.
Effective communication of environmental responsibility without overwhelming the traveling public is perhaps one of the greatest challenges facing hoteliers. Fortunately, there are some good models to follow. For example, Wyndham Worldwide recently launched a dedicated Web page, Wyndham-Green.com, to promote its efforts to consumers.
San Francisco-based Joie de Vivre Hospitality recently launched its Green Dreams portal, a dedicated page on its Web site where consumers can track the company’s ongoing efforts to preserve the environment.
“We want to be transparent and share the progress we’ve made and the efforts that continue as we strive to have all our hotels green-certified in the near term,” says Joie de Vivre’s senior vice president of operations, Karlene Holloman, who chairs the company’s green committee. “In essence, our guests can be green cheerleaders, watching from the sidelines as more of our hotels reach their goals. We hope Joie de Vivre Green Dreams will become a useful tool and resource for our guests and any consumer evaluating green travel programs.”
Expect other operators to follow suit with dedicated Web space—something that individual properties within a brand definitely appreciate.
“It’s nice to finally have a [portal] to refer guests to where everything is all in one place,” says Pam Flank, general manager of Hotel Carlton—the first Joie de Vivre property to be green-certified by its home city—and a member of the company’s green committee.
The hotel in the past has had a page in the guestroom compendium that told guests about the property’s green efforts, but the new multi-pronged approach to communication, which includes the Web portal as well as educating staff members to ensure they are aware of green programs and can explain them to guests and answer their questions, is definitely more effective, Flank says.
Direct comments to: derek.gale@reedbusiness.com
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Our recently revised Certification and Marketing program, EcoRooms & EcoSuites is a resource for hoteliers and Green Guests.
www.EcoRooms.com
Ray Burger - 2009-16-1 17:34:00 PST -
Hi there, nice article!
By the way, we are working on NaturCert+, which is our very own blog where we share our news and articles, and where visitors have the opportunity to share their activities and ideas with the rest of the world.
Our aim for NaturCert+, is to develop a public platform that will address a variety of issues related to responsible and/or sustainable travel & tourism and become a daily reading resource for a broad spectrum of visitors.
We aim to give the opportunity to bloggers to contribute and share their content relevant to responsible and/or sustainable travel & tourism on our blog and gain new readers and followers, more visibility and publicity, as well as better promotion while generating added value for the submitted content.
Please contact us on plus@naturcert.com if you are interested.
Palko - NaturCert - 2009-15-1 01:44:00 PST
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