It's not easy being green, but it matters

Do people really care if your hotel is green or not? I bet you wonder that, as you spend time and money to ensure that you’re respecting the environment with that big physical plant you’re running. Whether it’s trying to cut back on the amount of linens you’re laundering to controlling how many plastic water bottles you distribute, trying to be green is no easy task.

If you asked me last year if most travelers care if your hotel is green, I would have said, “no.” We always ask the question in our annual Voice of the GM Survey, and until this year, most of the GM participants said their guests were not terribly concerned if the hotel was green.

A year later, I’m saying guests do care, thanks to a new Sustainability Research Study recently conducted by MindClick SGM. The goal of the study was to understand the interest in green hospitality and what role sustainability plays in the travel procurement decision. MindClick did an online research study in July from the Association of Corporate Travel Executives membership database. Respondents were U.S.- or Canada-based corporate travel executives representing a range of industries. They tend to procure more midscale hotel rooms (64 percent) than upscale rooms (34 percent).

Here are a few findings: First, judging by the results, I can recommend that you “don’t lean on being green.” Along with location and service, condition and quality of the hotel property are still the most important attributes in the hotel procurement decision. However, it’s important you still focus on sustainability, because more than half of all respondents indicated their company currently has or is planning a program to “green” business travel. More importantly, 72 percent of green travel buyers (these are the respondents who have implemented, are creating or are considering creating a program to “green” business travel and meetings) have or are implementing policies requiring sustainability information from travel suppliers.

This means you’ll be required to define exactly what you are doing on the green front. Some even indicated they’ll be determining through their own criteria if a hotel is eco-friendly.

“We have five questions related to recycling, power and water conservation, etc., that we ask during the hotel RFP process. These must all be answered and are used as criteria for our awarding of corporate contracts,” said one respondent.

So there you have it. Being green does matter and will help you increase revenue. Watch this space for more details of this very important study.