Environmental Sustainability for Travel Brands
By Amy Wheaton
Sustainability is more than just a buzzword for travel brands. Having a sustainability strategy — and communicating it effectively — can have big business implications for destination marketing organizations, hotels, and resorts. As global concern about climate change continues to build, and consumers are looking for more sustainable options, there’s an opportunity for hospitality brands to carefully consider introducing eco-friendly offerings and committing to a greener business model.
Demand and interest in sustainable travel is rising, and its market is expected to grow by $235.21 billion between 2021–2025. Who’s propelling this growth? Gen Z (56%) and millennial (51%) travellers are most concerned with sustainable travel. A survey shows that 77% of travellers between 18–29 have made travel decisions based on elements of sustainability.
For these groups, eco-friendly hospitality is less of a “nice-to-have” and more of an expectation. Sustainable initiatives can be the deal-breaker when it comes to making a hotel reservation or booking an excursion. Here’s how to introduce your sustainability initiatives into your digital marketing strategy.
How to talk about sustainability as a travel brand
It goes without saying: be honest! People appreciate authenticity and transparency, so it’s better to say, “We’re working on initiatives like x, y, and z and committed to growing our impact in this space” versus, “Our brand is leading the way in x, y, and z” if that’s not entirely true.
Think about stories to tell beyond activities like recycling and composting. For example, if your restaurant sources local, in-season ingredients or responsibly-farmed items, that’s a great feature to call out in your marketing materials. If you’ve retrofitted your property with greener fixtures (light bulbs, toilets, energy-efficient…anything), talk about it!
Call out any eco-friendly certifications or labels your brand has received. Savvy travellers will look for international designations like Green Key, Green Globe, Earth Check, and Green Tourism that indicate a property or experience has been vetted as a sustainable option.
Get creative! Can you offer free bicycle rentals for guests, provide filtered tap water and glasses for drinking instead of plastic bottles, or install smart thermostats to reduce energy use throughout your property? Can you set up an onsite herb garden for the kitchen, or collaborate with local vendors to provide in-room snacks or fresh fruit in the lobby?
Measure results — even small actions have a big impact. For example, how many plastic bottles did you keep out of landfills by introducing filtered tap water in rooms, how many loads of laundry did you save by encouraging guests to reuse their towels, or how many miles did your guests travel by bike rather than by car while sightseeing? Save those statistics (we’ll be coming back to them later!)
Perhaps your brand is just dipping its toe into eco-friendly territory — that’s a great story to tell, too! Think about why this initiative is important to you and your goals for the coming season or year. Outline steps you’ll take to make a positive change. Brand loyalists will enjoy hearing about your progress.
How to share your sustainability messaging
Now that you’ve honed in on your brand’s stance on sustainable tourism — what you’re doing, what impact you’ve had so far, and your future goals — it’s time to share it with the world.
Having a sustainability landing page on your website is a great place to start. Many hospitality websites have a sustainability page that includes information about the brand’s commitment to the environment and the local community, and audiences who are interested in these pillars intuitively know to look for this content. What should be included on this page? Any messaging related to your brand’s commitment to the environment, eco-friendly activities and initiatives on the property, and statistics about your results to date: Numbers can tell a compelling story, so don’t be shy about using big, bold numbers and icons to shout about the great work you’ve been doing.
A blog is a great channel for sharing ongoing, fresh content about your sustainability activities all year long. Check out trending days throughout the year that align best with your brand’s environmental values (World Water Day, World Oceans Day, Earth Day…the list goes on) and develop content that aligns with those themes.
Share a link to your blog or your landing page on your social media channels so followers can easily learn more about the positive changes you’re making. Ask your followers for their favourite eco-friendly travel tips and share their responses to elevate the conversation and drive engagement on your channels.
Lastly, email marketing is one of your most impactful tools for developing a 1:1 connection with your customers and guests. Let them know what’s new on property or in the destination, share tips for being a more conscious traveller, and set up a pre-arrival email journey when guests make a reservation to introduce the sustainable features and experiences they’re likely to see when they arrive.
Best-in-class examples of sustainability in hospitality
Visit Iceland shows up frequently in travel marketing roundups due to their smart and strategic tactics, and their approach to sustainability on their website is no exception. Visitors can demonstrate their commitment to travelling responsibly by taking the Icelandic Pledge or calculating (and offsetting) their trip’s carbon footprint using an online calculator. In addition, they’ve shared easy-to-implement tips and activities for being a more responsible traveller while in the destination.
My Switzerland has coined a unique brand name — “Swisstainable” — for their eco-friendly hospitality activity. Their website contains lots of sustainable travel inspiration, including the “My Swisstainable Journeys” section — first-person accounts of eco-friendly experiences, activities, and offerings.
In the hotel space, 1Hotels does a fantastic job of incorporating sustainability and wellness throughout every facet of their brand — it shines through in their digital marketing platform, but on property, too, with features like filtered drinking water taps in guestrooms, reclaimed wood furniture, and nourishing local ingredients on the menu. For this brand, sustainability and protecting the environment is a core pillar of the business, and it’s done in a genuine and holistic way.
Want to get started?
The VERB team would love to hear from you! Our strategists can work with you to craft sustainability messaging and bring it to life across your marketing channels. Contact us to find out more about our marketing services.
Amy Wheaton is the Director of Marketing at VERB Interactive — a leader in digital marketing, specializing in solutions for the travel and hospitality industry. Find out more at www.verbinteractive.com.
