Reputable or sustainable: what comes first?

How can hotels benefit from communicating their sustainable activities and why they need to be clear and proactive about doing so? Clare Garnham, Senior Account Director at Speed Communications sets out the case in an interesting article on Greenhotelier.com, a leading source of information on the sustainable and responsible agenda within the hotel industry.

Some Key Points:

  • Communicating: responsible business activity is about communicating responsibly. Many business travellers will actively look for an environmentally conscious hotel, some even willing to pay more for the experience, which is encouraging, but equally challenging. 
  • Sustainable practices need to be evident, recordable and – critically – transparent.
  • Communicating sustainable practices can’t sit in isolation, a bolt-on, a bit of text in one area of the website; they need to be communicated from all parts and all people in the business.

There is no doubt that responsible business strategy will continue to take on an escalating role, as will communicating such activity. For hotels, the challenge is to think about what you want to be known for and what you want your responsible business plan to say about you and your people. Gaining clarity of this and greater confidence in your beliefs will support a braver, a more holistic and importantly, a long-term approach to responsible reputation building. And communicating your sustainability will undoubtedly lead to increased CSR activity across the board.

You can read the full article here