The rising importance of sustainability in hotel industry

The Asian travel and hospitality sector is gearing up for the 15th edition of ITB Asia 2022, scheduled in Singapore from October 19-21. This three-day-long premier trade event is a confluence of technology and hospitality with participation from hotels, resorts, tour operators and several technology providers. While many industry experts will express their opinions about various aspects of the ecosystem, we thought of focussing on one of the much-talked-about issues - sustainability in the hotel industry. 

Sustainability is a hot topic in the hospitality industry. Like business establishments in other sectors, hotels are doing their bit to consume minimum natural resources and conserve water and energy. They do so by making their properties more sustainable while reducing environmental impacts. 

Why does sustainability matter for hotels?

According to the UNWTO, in 2018, the hotel industry was responsible for about 1 per cent of global emissions. The agency states the emission level is expected to rise with the increased demand. Following the Paris Climate Conference (COP21), by 2030, the hotel industry must contain its carbon emission by 66 per cent. It also needs to cut down the same by 90 per cent by 2050 to stay within the 2˚C threshold. 

Benefits of adopting sustainable practices

It doesn't only help a hotel transform itself as an environmentally conscious brand, but it has a wide range of direct impacts on its business. Here they are:

Attracting more guests

Call them eco-friendly or green hotels; they are no doubt attracting more guests. In 2016, about 62 per cent of global travellers intended to stay at one such property at least once. But, in 2021, their number grew to 81 per cent. Moreover, over 80 per cent of today's guests are ready to pay more - a premium to a hotel that demonstrates genuine green policies. 

Saving costs

Energy costs account for about 15 per cent -35 per cent of a hotel’s operating expenses. Many hotels with ISO 14001 certification guidelines have saved significantly on this. Moreover, they can adopt intelligent energy management solutions to regulate energy consumption by the HVAC system. Thermostats with occupancy sensors can adjust the HVAC temperature using IoT. Integration of such a solution with the Hotel PMS allows hotels to access and analyse data about their energy usage. 

Increasing efficiency

In this context, one key area for hotels is to get rid of server-based applications and get on to the cloud. Here, adopting a cloud-based Hotel PMS enables hotels to work with all the operationally imperative solutions on the cloud. All these integrated cloud applications empower hotels to work more efficiently than before. Not only this but from a sustainability point of view, doing away with servers leads to zero hardware setup and network cabling — all these result in energy conservation, leading to an even lesser carbon footprint.  

Some other ways to achieve sustainability

Hotels practicing a well-thought-through green policy should continuously sensitise their guests to follow the same. For example, they may encourage guests to use public transport to explore nearby attractions. As part of their CSR programme, they can even source items made from natural ingredients for their on-property gift shops. Plus, they can go completely paperless while using digital documents in terms of guest bills and others. Then, there is waste reduction and management, which plays quite an essential role in all these. 

Businesses with environmental and social policies continuously outperform competitors who haven't taken any steps yet. For hotels, it results in improved guest loyalty, recognition as an industry leader, and enhanced profits. By the way, Tom Kershaw, Chief Product and Technology Officer, Travelport, will speak on "A Smarter and Greener Global Tourism Industry: The Big Long-Term Game for Travel Tech" on the first day at ITB Asia. We are excited to hear from him. 

Hotelogix has been enabling hotels to leverage the power of cloud computing for over a decade now. With a multitude of solutions, they have been helping thousands of hospitality properties across the globe with their digitisation efforts.