Green Door: what secret you’re keepin’

The travel industry is investing more and more in eco-friendly projects, why are they not leveraging it more in their marketing and public relations? Joyce Yip reports.

As Marriott Group’s executive vice-president and chief operations officer in Asia Pacific, Craig Smith has a lot on his plate – communications, marketing, PR, brand-building – but for the past three years he’s been obsessed with honey.

As part of the hotel’s global “Spirit to Serve” initiative – a series of projects that benefit associates, guests or communities where the hotels are located – the Marriott Group launched the “Nobility of Nature” scheme in China in May 2010.

“It’s the feel-good part of my job,” Smith says. “My kids are more excited and more proud of this than any hotel opening around the world.”

With an intention to conserve water resources in the Sichuan province by opening up job opportunities that reduce the stress on water sources and chances of erosion, Nature of Nobility has partnered with environmental group Conservation International and made its debut in the region as organic bee farms.

Honey harvested from these farms has been sold in retail or used in all the food and beverages outlets within the group’s hotel chains in China, which include Ritz-Carlton, JW Marriott and Renaissance. According to Smith, the project has been so well received Marriott will open another farm next year and eventually expand the Nobility to Nature scheme to the rest of APAC in the shape of different projects.

Part of the scheme is also a promise to slash electricity and water consumption in the region by 25% by 2017: the group has since refurbished rooms with eco-friendly shower heads and toilets and has implemented the
use of rain water.

But Marriott is keeping its efforts quiet: aside from sporting ambassadors for each hotel, in-house commercials and exclusive press events, it doesn’t have any campaigns on the horizon – not even for what Smith would call, “the long-waited arrival” of the Sichuan organic honey in Hong Kong next year.

Eco-tourism is not really a consumer-based message: we do it because it’s the right thing to do, it’s also the cost-advantage thing to do

Daniel Ford

Marriott International executive director of communications

Daniel Ford, executive director of communications at Marriott International, thinks the current marketing efforts for Nobility of Nature are “not really humble”, saying the hotel only has a limited supply of honey, and given all the profits are recycled back into the project, there isn’t a whole lot of money for advertising.

But speaking in general terms about eco-tourism marketing, Ford adds the hotel’s duty in green is just not as eye-grabbing compared with seductive images of beaches and pristine bed sheets.

“Eco-tourism is not really a consumer-based message: we do it because it’s the right thing to do, it’s also the cost-advantage thing to do,” he says.

Marriott Group is not the only one keeping quiet. With the escalating attention on environmentalism over the past decade, the global hotel industry has invested substantial amounts to the game of green (some joined even earlier than Marriott Group); but very few have followed up with any consumer marketing.

So are hotels being modest or are they just doing something out of sheer good will? Perhaps, but the likely answer is they see long-term benefits for their business – whether in cost-cutting, brand-building or protecting their biggest asset, the destination.

Although eco-efforts in Asia Pacific started much later than the West, most large hotel chains have already set up green camps throughout the region. Joining the game a few months after the Nobility of Nature scheme, for example, was Hilton Group’s Carbon Offset Programme in Australia and New Zealand, where 5,750 tonnes of carbon emissions – equivalent to an average annual emission of 700 Australian households – have been offset. Similar projects have since been launched in Japan, and soon, China.

This is all news the Hilton Group – which operates hotels such as Conrad, DoubleTree and Hampton – has kept from the sun, sharing it with only its family’s hotel brands in an internal social dashboard that allows the chains to compare and share green knowledge with one another.

Even Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, a nature-friendly branded hotel, whose green thumb entered the region fairly early, with projects such as rehabilitating a toxic are in Laguna Phuket in 1992, opening Marine Labs in the Maldives in 2003, and setting up recovery funds for the Indonesian tsunami and Sichuan earthquake, is no exception to the rule.

Where the money is

According to a Trip Advisor survey done this April, half of the surveyed 700 US travellers said they would spend more money to stay at ecofriendly accommodation, and one-third would choose a destination for its eco-friendliness.

On a global scale, 50% of international tourists are willing to pay more to companies that benefit local communities and conservations, while 52% of travellers are likely to book a holiday with a company with a written code to guarantee good working conditions, environmental protection and local charity support, according to another report by the World Tourism Organisation.

These results are no surprise for Anja Eckervogt, manager of the Tourism for Tomorrow branch of the World Travel & Tourism Council.

“A lot of consumers are aware of the issues; they actually seek sustainable businesses, they want to go to a hotel or destination that is actually doing something for the community and for the environment,” she says. “Many customers are taking the environment factor for granted now, as in, they wouldn’t necessarily choose the hotel if it’s not doing anything in that direction.”

However, Tony Charters, convenor of the Global Eco Asia Pacific Tourism Conference, is sceptical to the weight of consumers’ role in driving hotels’ green thumbs, which, to him, is not the biggest determinant for travellers, seeing that only a small percentage of them dedicate their entire trip to nature-related activities.

The biggest incentive for businesses, rather, is cost-saving, closely followed by the national attitude.

“Consumer push varies from country to country: Europeans are very focused on it, other markets? Not so much,” he says. “But ecotourism is certainly being driven very rapidly in APAC – there’s outstanding growth in the countries’ demand for being green.”

In Bhutan, for example, the government has not only set up laws to protect wildlife, biodiversity and the people, but it has also set aside 26% of the kingdom as protected area. Maldives, meanwhile, plans to become the first carbon-neutral nation.

One view Eckervogt and Charters can share, however, is these green projects are integral to hotels’ survival because the destination is, essentially, their product.

Consumers want to go to a hotel or destination that is actually doing something for the community and for the environment. they wouldn’t necessarily choose the hotel if it’s not doing anything in that direction

Anja Eckervogt

Manager of the Tourism for Tomorrow branch of the World Travel & Tourism Council

“Hotels have an important role in making their area more appealing – the eco-friendly options is just another added layer to the location,” Charters says. “If you want to have a point of difference between your outlet and another, it’d be in the nature and culture of that area – that’s what’s of interest to travellers.”

Adds Eckervogt: “If they want to sustain, if they want to keep going, they have to change – the whole world is changing, especially in the tourism industry. The product is everything: if you don’t take care of the product, you don’t have anything.”

Why so quiet

Though hotels have selfish motives, what they’re doing is still good for the world. Then why are they keeping so quiet about their work? Because a hotel can never be green enough, says David Campion, Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts’ group director of corporate social responsibility operations.

“If you mention that you’re trying to be more sustainable, be greener, the media will become very critical,” he says. “People don’t realise you’re on a journey, and that by merely doing something, you’re not entirely fulfilling your role in the world. But what people don’t realise is that sustainability is a long process – so it’s a bit tricky to talk about it without putting the business in an awkward spin.”

Just two months ago, USA Today condemned one of the world’s most famous environmental rating systems, the US Green Building Council’s LEED – which certifies buildings and places them in bronze, silver and gold categories depending on the points they’ve received – for calling the Palazzo Hotel and Casino, among many others, a “green building”.

Despite sporting an indoor waterfall, smoke-filled gaming area, seven decorative fountains and guest suites with three TVs and power-controlled
curtains, the 50-storey hotel and casino still got green credit for installing bike racks in the garage, grass-free landscaping (which local law prohibits anyway), and parking spots designed for fuel-efficient cars, which were seen occupied with Ford Expeditions, Chevy Tahoes, Range Rovers, vans, sport cars and a Hummer, to name but a few from the article.

USA Today went further to say that more than 7,000 LEED-certified commercial buildings showed designs that earn the easiest and cheapest green points, some of which don’t actually help the environment directly: such as hiring a LEED-certified designer and using structural steel or concrete, which are common building materials the council considers green because they are made with recycled material.

So as an industry that lacks a universal definition of “green” and as one that has always been slammed for denting the local ecosystem – whether in issues surrounding environment, culture, overpopulation, or acculturation – it’s no wonder hotels are keeping their eco efforts on the quiet, however impressive they may be.

A chain that has somewhat broken free from this vicious cycle is Banyan Tree Hotels & Resorts, which has managed to veil a nature-loving image over its brand through not only setting up camp in exotic locations and integrating them to the surroundings, but also by letting the local culture seep into the hotel’s operations rather than applying a universal set of laws on every outlet.

The site at Koh Samui, for example, lets visitors dine on the beach overlooking the waters of Lamai Bay; the Lijiang branch takes guests on treks, while underwater weddings are popular at the Madivaru hotel. Even its urban outlets are designed with architecture that nods to nature.

“We are not like the Intercontinental or Four Seasons around the world, who have the same set of services, or they know your name and they greet guests in the same way. That’s one kind of hotel group the industry is after, but Banyan Tree is not founded on these principles. Rather, we really make sure guests can experience the luxury at the same time as the place,” Campion says.

“We do it through employing the local community, food and architecture – the hotels are basically replicas of the destination they are in. In fact, the destination is inherent in our hotels.”

For businesses who don’t have a mammoth budget to do a complete rebranding, they can consider breaking into the green travellers’ market by advertising in green, such as through the likes of Ink’s Targeted Advertising platform, which opened up spaces on print-at-home boarding passes, smartphone boarding passes, web pages, confirmation emails and inflight entertainment for advertisers to speak to flyers of certain origins, age and gender.

“Travellers are getting more and more concerned about waste consumption,” says James Harrison, Ink group marketing and communications director. “In eco-tourism and the environment, we’ve seen a growth in interest in the past year, and the message we want to send out is definitely one that aligns with the hotels.”

While most hotel marketers are convinced campaigns of a smiling concierge, fluffy pillows and breathtaking views are more attractive than their duty in green, and others are afraid the publicity will only attract criticism, they must, however, acknowledge the growing popularity of sustainable travel and eventually find better ways to raise their green thumbs to the public.

But for now, hotel marketers such as Smith and Campion, who lives in Hue, Vietnam, and mans a Terrapin Turtle breeding programme, are happy about their jobs.

“In the hotel industry, everyone is trying to keep our partners moving by sharing our agendas and our vision. Education is crucial in our line of work, but I’m confident the journey will surely continue in the same direction,” Campion says. “If we can create that type of sustainable, environmentally friendly template for the hotel industry to follow, to me personally, that’s moving things forward in a positive.”