Lack of demand or lack of awareness?
(This article appeared in Travindy on 11-Jan-2018)
I’d like to look at recent research in Tourism Review on consumer demand for benchmarks in hospitality and tourism [1]. Benchmarks include certifications, standards, licenses, and other performance measures.
I write about the business case for sustainability. Rather than bury the lede, I’ll come right out with it. As an advocate for sustainability benchmarks, I wish this study showed a clear consumer preference for them, but it does not. I chose to write this anyway, because a critical element of developing a case is to identify weaknesses and obstacles, so we can develop strategies to overcome them.
Key findings of the research included
Importance of benchmarks for quality, price, cleanliness, and safety ranked above any of the sustainability oriented options, which included conserving resources, wellbeing, environmental friendliness, and promotion of healthy lifestyles. Tasci (the study’s author) noted the higher priority items are short-term and personal benefits, while the latter are longer-term and greater good benefits.
Women ranked the importance of benchmarks in all categories higher than men did.
Restaurants and airlines ranked highest in the list, while casinos, bars, and bus lines ranked lowest. The author noted a correlation between frequency of use and importance of a benchmark.
Consumers are unaware of benchmarks related to sustainability.
For the last point, respondents were asked to name benchmarks, but only 50% of those surveyed could name just one, and only 23% could name 3. Some names provided were generic – either applying to all industries such as Better Business Bureau, or generic in the sense that there is no label used for marketing (e.g. health department). Some, such as Michelin or J.D. Power, were specific to hospitality. None were sustainability related.
Unaware, unimportant, or unseen?
I want to take that lack of recognition one step further. To demonstrate a point, I conducted my own, informal research looking for accommodations. I randomly chose Memphis, Tennessee as my destination – a weekend getaway to check out famous Beale Street. Being a ‘practice what you preach’ kind of person, I’d like to book at a sustainable hotel.
I spent almost an hour searching an eco-hotel in Memphis. This did not include time needed to pick a hotel closest to Beale Street, within my price range, or to read reviews on quality, cleanliness, and safety. I compared different websites and searches to determine properties that might be considered sustainable.
In no OTA website was it clear what made a hotel “green” or “sustainable.” I only found one hotel website that listed sustainability initiatives, but it had no benchmark. No option in my initial research had a sustainability related certification. In fact, a Google search on ‘Memphis eco hotel’ or ‘Memphis sustainable hotel’ did not even return a result in the first 3 pages that pointed to the Tennessee Lodging Association’s Green Hospitality program. As it turns out, there is one hotel in Memphis with this certification; however, on that hotel’s website, there is no mention of green, sustainability, or the TN Green Hospitality certification.
(By the way, I do not mean to pick on Memphis or Tennessee. I selected it randomly and from experience researching this topic, I believe I would encounter similar results if I had selected any number of cities to perform this experiment.)
Recognition is requisite, but what is a consumer to recognize?
My experience supports Tasci’s proposal that a marketing orientation would serve certification organizations. Most certification bodies proclaim marketing as one of their benefits, but this generally consists of a press release and a few social media mentions. Certifiers seem to lack the marketing savvy and resources to drive bookings.
My observation is also that the entirety of the system is not conducive to consumers being aware of or able to easily search on sustainability. Where I have encountered hotels with rigorous sustainability benchmarks to tout (which I found because I go out of my way to do so), there has often been little or no mention on OTA listings (which are already crowded) or hotel webpages (the content of which can be dictated or even controlled by a corporate brand). And where I found green/sustainability on OTA listings, the data was sometimes inaccurate (mostly in the form of a lapsed certification).
As Tasci suggested, those using benchmarks ought to be driving demand through promotion and education, which leads to both recognition and behavior change. Certifying bodies should be the catalyst for such collaboration. If you have a benchmark or are part of a certifying body, I would certainly like to hear your perspective on this. As always, you can email me at info@astrapto.com.
[1] D.A. Tasci, A. (2017). Consumer demand for sustainability benchmarks in tourism and hospitality. Tourism Review, 72(4), 375–391. https://doi.org/10.1108/TR-05-2017-0087
