With an alarming number of extreme weather
events dominating the headlines over the past few years and major reports sounding the warning bells about global warming, the
effects of climate change have become impossible to ignore. While governments
are responding with more aggressive policies to curb carbon emissions,
consumers are increasingly looking to corporations to play their part and do
good for people and the planet. According to the Harvard Business Review, companies that invest sufficiently in
sustainability will outperform those that do not, particularly among younger
consumers.  

Travel is one major industry where
consumers recognize the need to be more sustainable. In Booking.com’s 2022 Sustainable Travel Report, 71% of global travelers hoped to travel more
sustainably in the upcoming year, reflecting a
growing commitment to eco-friendly travel choices. 

And yet there is some evidence that consumer interest in
sustainable travel has plateaued at 75%, based on
Booking.com’s most recent Sustainable Travel Report. While this stagnation doesn’t
diminish the importance of sustainability in travel (three-quarters of the
population is not insignificant!), the leveling off can be attributed to the
challenges consumers face in finding and booking sustainable travel options.

Chief
among these challenges is choice and trust. Though the availability of eco-accommodations
is on the rise, identifying sustainable accommodations outside of
this category is less obvious. How can you be sure the hotel you’ve booked for
a weekend in London prioritizes sustainability and is not engaging in
greenwashing activities?
Furthermore, how can hotels in the same group maintain a consistent level of
sustainability across different locations to ensure that guests are not
disappointed from one booking to the next?

Overall,
consumers tend not to trust brand
sustainability claims, and that’s certainly the case in travel. 

According
to Booking.com’s 2023 survey, nearly 40% of consumers said they don’t trust the
sustainability of available travel options. About 50% think they are too
expensive, likely because these options tend to cater to the luxury market. And
yet, 45% of consumers in the 2024 poll say they find it appealing when they
come across an accommodation with sustainability labeling, with 67% agreeing
that all travel booking sites should use the same sustainable certifications or
labels. 

The
message to companies is clear: To meet
the demand for sustainable stays and ensure the trustworthiness of their
claims, hospitality brands must be ready to prove that their actions towards
the environment are genuine. 

Recognized
certifications from organizations like Green Key are the best way hotels can
substantiate their green policies to the public. What those certifications mean
must be clearly communicated via different booking partners using consistent
terms. Laid out in this way, the mission seems rather straightforward, and yet
anyone involved in quantifying, analyzing and communicating sustainability
within the hotel space knows this is far from true. Let’s explore why. 

The path
to sustainability

Establishing
standardized reporting and certifications across the hospitality and travel industries
is essential for scaling sustainability practices. Data is central to creating
these standards, but the existing sustainability data management practices
don’t allow it. Many hotels, even ones that are part of large hospitality
groups, still collect and communicate their sustainability data manually — in
other words, through email and spreadsheets. It’s a decentralized,
time-consuming process prone to human error that results in inconsistent
experiences across different properties. It’s also expensive. 

According
to our estimates, hotels spend nearly $8 million annually on sustainability
reporting using these complex fragmented and manual approaches without much to
show. And because each eco-certification standard asks for data based on its
own parameters, data can’t easily be re-used, creating a significant hurdle across
the industry toward sustainability innovation and initiative expansion. 

The
challenges are similar for booking partners like online travel agencies (OTAs).
To communicate a hotel’s sustainability credentials to its customers, OTAs
often receive an exported list of hotels via a spreadsheet from the different
certifiers and then must manually (and individually) match them to hotels in
their database before being able to create a category for sustainability within
their booking channels. As a result, it’s near impossible for OTAs to process
information in real time, fueling consumer skepticism about the validity of a
travel provider’s sustainability claims and discouraging some platforms from
including sustainability as a search parameter. 

In 2024,
no hotel or booking partner should manually manage its sustainability data.
This practice causes them to miss out on revenue from the growing eco-conscious
traveler market and puts them at serious risk of not meeting sustainability
reporting and compliance requirements. Governments worldwide, such as the European Union, have
begun implementing these standards for all businesses operating within their
borders. 

Removing
obstacles to more responsible tourism

If siloed
and outdated practices are the problem, combining a hotel’s sustainability data
and data requirements from eco-certifiers and government regulators into a
centralized, interconnected database is the modern-day answer. While
sustainability data management software has existed for many years, until
recently, no system has ever addressed hotels’ specific needs.

But with
the introduction of purpose-built sustainability data management technology,
hotels and the broader travel industry now have a streamlined way to handle their
sustainability data. This solution acts like a hub or intermediary, centralizing
all hotel sustainability data and efficiently funneling data between all
relevant parties within and outside an organization. Individual hotels, large
chains, booking engines, industry organizations and eco-standards certifiers can
all access the hub, pushing and pulling data to its central database via API,
enabling a high-level of automation previously not possible. What does this
mean in practical terms?

First
off, hotels gain access to the different sustainability certification
frameworks and tools from within the hub, providing them a more direct path to
certification. A platform with AI capabilities, for instance, can help
sustainability leads quickly evaluate the data required to successfully
complete a certification and alert them to any gaps that threaten their status,
while also enabling data up-cycling. This means that data is automatically
mapped across different frameworks, allowing hotels to earn more certifications
faster and for less money. Any changes to frameworks are uploaded directly to
the sustainability data management hub in real time as well, ensuring there are
no lapses in information. 

The same
principle applies to government regulations like the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive. A sustainability data management hub built for the
hotel industry should be able to incorporate the government reporting frameworks
into its database, providing hotels with only the relevant datapoints they need
to create audit-ready reports, significantly reducing the time and cost barriers
to regulatory compliance. 

But
hotels aren’t the only beneficiaries of a centralized hotel sustainability data
management system. Booking platforms can also connect to eco-certifiers via the
database and automatically validate a hotel’s eco-labeling in real time, eliminating
the possibility of greenwashing. This means customers have a broader selection
of sustainable accommodations at almost every price point and can make decisions
based on trusted, verifiable information.

The
demand for sustainable travel options remains strong, but consumer weariness has
started to creep in. To quell that weariness, hospitality providers must double
down on their efforts to build trust through accurate and consistent sustainability
reporting that leverages recognized certifications to instill confidence in
travelers looking to reduce the carbon footprint of their travels. 

Aside
from the revenue gains, investing in a more automated, centralized and
intuitive sustainability data management system will help hotels save on
operational costs, meet compliance and reporting obligations despite increasing
regulations and gain an undeniable competitive advantage. 

Most importantly,
these actions enable more responsible tourism by providing travelers with
trustworthy, sustainable choices and ensuring their travel experiences positively
contribute to the environment and local communities.