Accor, Reserving.com, and the College of Surrey printed a report primarily based on analysis geared toward understanding and addressing traveler motivations in relation to making extra sustainable choices throughout their keep. This initiative has been pushed by an understanding that visitors play a vital function within the efficacy and effectivity of sustainability initiatives. Nonetheless, there generally is a excessive degree of skepticism amongst vacationers in relation to their function in these efforts. The analysis made clear the contribution messaging performs in motivating extra sustainable behaviors, a part within the continued growth of sustainability practices inside the trade. This whitepaper offers a reference level about visitors, serving to to deal with hospitality’s shared challenges in relation to bridging the intent to motion hole of many vacationers.
Touring extra sustainably is a precedence for a lot of vacationers, with 83 % saying that sustainable journey is necessary to them, and 67 % saying they’re impressed to undertake extra sustainable behaviors after witnessing accountable practices, based on Reserving.com’s Sustainable Journey Report 2024. The impetus for making optimistic change is due to this fact clear to stay aligned with visitors’ values and expectations.
Drawing on lab analysis and interviews with world vacationers to determine widespread points and misconceptions in relation to sustainability communications, the report offers 4 suggestions to optimize visitor messaging to advertise extra sustainable practices:
- Spotlight sustainability practices—together with for much less sustainable facilities—and present how visitors can contribute: A takeaway from the analysis was the significance of offering clear, particular details about sustainability practices and avoiding massive claims akin to “eco-friendly” or “inexperienced.” An instance from the research was that messaging that helped the visitor perceive their half in lowering meals waste was discovered to scale back ranges of skepticism from 46 % to 21 % in comparison with extra generic and imprecise messaging. This exhibits the significance for inns to show they’re enjoying their half to deal with sustainability points, with particular and centered messages essential to higher partaking visitors.
- Stability appeals to pleasure and luxury for optimum outcomes: Interviews carried out with vacationers highlighted the truth that it may well really feel troublesome to have a optimistic journey whereas making extra sustainable choices. Many vacationers affiliate the notion of sustainability with extra restricted and fewer pleasurable experiences. To beat this, inns ought to stability sustainability messages round each pleasure and luxury, highlighting choices that are each pleasurable and sustainable, akin to scenic prepare rides or native culinary experiences. Sustainability messages that target consolation or pleasure had been discovered to extend emotions of satisfaction and pleasure by 145 % and 475 % respectively, over examples of present messaging getting used.
- Empower visitors, don’t constrain or dictate to them: The analysis signifies that visitors choose an empowering strategy to sustainability communications relatively than feeling dictated to, with 55 % reporting feeling skeptical towards assertive messages akin to “restrict your water use.” As such, inns ought to undertake a tone that encourages visitors to make knowledgeable decisions with out strain. By sharing information about native sustainable choices—like public transport schedules—inns can place visitors as energetic contributors in sustainability efforts.
- Assist visitors act as responsibly as they do at house: The ultimate takeaway is that many vacationers want to preserve their sustainable habits whereas away from house, however lodge processes and operations can usually make them really feel constrained in doing so. Messaging that evokes familiarity, belief, and care is necessary to making sure sustainable actions stay intuitive, serving to visitors really feel extra related to their environment and inspiring repeat visits. Particularly, messages that search to create a way of house had been perceived as twice as accountable as messaging at the moment in use, and decreased skepticism to greater than half of present ranges.
These insights had been gathered following a two-phase analysis train, which gathered quantitative and qualitative information from quite a few surveys and lab-based behavioral experiments.
The primary section of this analysis concerned 24 in-depth interviews with 100 visitors from america, Germany, France, and India, specializing in their expectations concerning sustainability and its affect on reserving choices. After these interviews, Reserving.com’s analysis crew adopted 22 visitors from the identical international locations by way of a diary research protecting the planning, reserving, and touring phases of their journeys. This aimed to know what function sustainability performed at every stage and to seize the highs and lows of their keep by the lens of sustainability.
Benefitting from the College of Surrey’s tutorial assets, the second analysis section was then capable of present deeper insights primarily based on behavioral analysis from Surrey’s Human Perception Lab. This analysis appeared on the emotional and physiological responses of almost 70 buyers offered with totally different units of sustainability messages, utilizing applied sciences akin to eye monitoring, galvanic pores and skin responses, and facial evaluation software program. The researchers additionally carried out interviews with the identical set of shoppers, using superior psychological approaches by projective strategies. These strategies enabled them to realize deeper insights into buyer expertise by tapping into unconscious responses. Mixed with sensor information from three applied sciences, these strategies supplied insights for the trade. These findings will help the trade in enhancing optimistic buyer experiences and driving sustainable conduct change, finally resulting in long-term buyer loyalty and improved environmental outcomes.
“Creating extra sustainable hospitality experiences is a journey of studying and humility. At Accor, with over 40 manufacturers, we’re excited to set new advertising and marketing requirements to make sustainability messaging clearer and extra impactful. Too usually, these communications are imprecise, leaving model leaders with out sensible steering. Our partnership with Reserving.com and the College of Surrey goals to equip advertising and marketing and communication consultants with actionable insights that actually have interaction visitors in our inns’ impression journey. By sharing this work brazenly, we hope to encourage each world manufacturers and impartial properties to craft compelling narratives that empower visitors to be a part of the change,” mentioned Jordane de Villaret, vp, sustainability advertising and marketing and communications, Accor.
“Many hospitality suppliers are making nice strides of their sustainability journeys. Nonetheless, they nonetheless meet quite a lot of challenges. Partaking vacationers on the efforts they’re making is certainly one of them, and the cooperation of visitors may be very important to the efficacy of many sustainability practices. At Reserving.com, we’re dedicated to collaborating with companions throughout the trade to assist overcome the varied limitations hospitality suppliers face. The goal of our collaboration with Accor and the College of Surrey is to allow extra hospitality suppliers to optimize the impression of their sustainability efforts and positively affect traveler conduct in the direction of embracing extra sustainable actions and decisions,” mentioned Danielle D’Silva, director of sustainability, Reserving.com.
“On the College of Surrey, we’re dedicated to advancing analysis that drives significant change. By way of our collaboration with Accor and Reserving.com, we apply cutting-edge behavioral insights to know how sustainability messaging can higher have interaction visitors and affect decision-making. By combining tutorial rigor with trade experience, this analysis offers hospitality professionals with evidence-based methods to make sustainable journey extra intuitive, impactful, and actionable,” mentioned Xavier Font, professor of sustainability advertising and marketing, College of Surrey.