How an eco friendly hotel can live up to their guest expectations

Your hotel guests are nowadays more environmentally aware and have come to expect your accommodation to be environmental friendly. In fact studies shows that 76 percent of the guests base their decision where to stay on the level of eco-friendliness of the hotel and are even willing to pay more for their stay. People really want to associate with companies that are socially responsible and this will only increase in the near future.

When you make the decision to incorporate an environmental management plan into your hotels operations, there are a number of ways to do this that can educate and encourage meaningful connections between your properties’ performance reporting efforts and the unique expectations of your guests. The simple and most direct approach is to be honest and practical with both your employees and guests by having a dedicated group of your employees that can lead this effort on site. If you can help this team map out how environmental and social responsible reporting can tell a story about your hotel, the team can discover not only inefficiencies in your service delivery chain, but also the guest facing touch points along that delivery chain where your best practices can be celebrated and promoted.

 

 Another method of incorporating environmental and socially responsible best practices into your operations is to participate in national or state green lodging programs. These programs usually provide a checklist of hotel operation activities to consider for greening. In assessing certification programs available to your hotel, it is always better to select a more comprehensive program over those that verify only a few commitments remotely. The more comprehensive a certification program is in what they require, the broader their perspective usually is of the supply chain that supports successful service delivery. Undertaking verification within a more rigorous program will help make your staff better prepared for the personal health and performance expectations of green savvy travelers whose requirements now often exceed both regulatory and self-defined performance measures. Additional activities that you can undertake to integrate guest experiences with your hotels environmental efforts can include providing health –conscious alternatives to your traditional services (which would appeal to family oriented travelers) or offering specialized recognition programs for retuning green-lifestyle guests and local business clients. The most important thing to remember though is to make your environmental program realistic, optimistic, and unique to the conditions at your hotel. By making such a commitment to truth seeking travelers, you can position your hotel beyond “eco-friendliness” and become a steward in defining what industry sustainability really means for your competitors.