Green Hospitality A Failing Dynamic

While guest retention is key, many hotel operators are often hesitant to engage in activities that sometimes could be anti-luxury or compromise in their view of the brand experience. Energy remains the single fastest-growing operating cost in this ever-expanding industry.

According to reports, there is a well-established case for energy efficiency expectations for hoteliers to increase their climate stewardship are on the rise. Hotel buildings are often guilty of intensive use of oil, LPG, etc. Almost all of them are expected to provide what customers would term as ‘basic services’ such as air conditioning, hot water, and laundry, which in many cases are provided by inefficient equipment, aggravating the problem of environmental pollution.

All of this ensures that hotels are generating large amounts of CO2, which leads to negative impacts on the environment and diminishes the companies’ profits due to the high energy costs.

Energy efficiency in hotels with an in-depth focus and false green marketing is also taking steam. Through a strategic approach to energy efficiency, a 10 percent reduction in energy consumption would have an immensely positive impact on cutting costs and increasing profits.

Ideally, the concept of sustainability under the UN framework is “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.” A sustainable hotel or accommodation makes vital eco-friendly changes so as to diminish a negative influence on the environment. Even then many sustainable hotels focus on energy efficiency and promote it effectively, they lack an in-depth view of it.

Many hotels in the Middle East for instance promote sustainable practices emphasizing energy efficiency and CSR (Corporate social responsibility) and promote it to attract and retain consumers who look for sustainable hotels. However, in the Middle East, most of their electricity is generated from non-renewable sources such as oil, coal, etc.

Some of the effective green marketing strategies which the could be used concomitantly to ensure sustained growth in profits, guest retention, and being eco-friendly includes avoiding greenwashing entirely, raising the ESG standards, and customizing their target audiences, in which it becomes increasingly clear that tourists who could do without a 24/7 centralized air conditioning or could employ the use of eco-friendly products become the key audience. Speaking for the environment is plain rhetoric when it is done without consciously achieving LEED & ISO certifications for the hotels or adopting environmentally-friendly distribution channels.

If ‘green’ services are a part of the agenda only then should green marketing be a part of it?