Behind closed doors – find out what guests consume in their accommodation

Do you know how much your guests actually can save, in energy and water, if you only knew how to ask?

Growing scientific evidence shows that the behaviour of guests staying at tourist accommodation can have a significant effect on the building’s overall energy/water use and carbon emissions. If only guests were approached and advised correctly in the first place owners/managers could achieve big savings, helping the bottom line and reducing carbon emissions. The ICRT Australia has supported six research papers, published in leading academic journals, which report on persuasive communication experiments involving guests. Using smart technologies the research show guests’ consumption in a way we have not been able to see before as their routines have until now been behind closed doors. What does it reveal? That guests can cut their consumption by up to 38%.  What does it require? A low cost comprehensive persuasive communication programme and monitoring system like My Green Butler. The ICRT Australia, as a partner in the UNEP Sustainable Tourism Programme, has now published two summary reports compiling key evidence to assist tourism, you can read them here. Demonstrating Resource Conservation to Governments & Private Sector Report 2 – FINAL Scientific Research Progress in Responsible Consumption Report 1 – FINAL

 

Values and Knowledge are the keys to ignite managers’ action for change

The UN has called for urgent transformational change so the Paris Agreement goals can be reached. Such transitions require more than simply technology advances they require in a change in mindset to spur organisational innovation,  the innovative involvement of visitors who consume tourism and the active integration of these endeavours to design innovative experiences. Our research has found that structured education and practical skills development is essential to motivate managers to lead the required transition to more sustainable tourism. Read the research here.

Innovation to be a key to ‘Kasane Call To Action’

A key result from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation’s Sustainable Tourism Conference in Kasane Botswana (November 2017), is the much-awaited launch of the Kasane Call to Action.

The two-day conference provided many outstanding examples of responsible tourism that apply innovative approaches, like Des Elepants &  des Hommes, an NGO which seeks to manage the balance between elephants and community survival in less developed economies in Africa and the World Bank’s support for controlling illegal wildlife hunting. The ICRT was invited and presented our innovative project My Green Butler to demonstrate the opportunities to encourage visitors to conserve consumption and direct financial savings to worthy local causes.

Participants contributed to the Kasane Call to Action ‘What We Want’ which stems from four product pillars to deliver sustainable consumption and production.  These require tourism to take the lead, apply innovative methods, change financial focus, and empower all stakeholders to apply practices.

The ICRT is a partner of the UN One Planet programme and shares research findings with all programme members and the wider tourism community. Details can be found here.

Internal skills develop reaps far reaching rewards

The benefits of encouraging staff to progress their skills and career opportunities was strongly demonstrated at the Arabian Travel Market’s Developing Tourism Skills and Employment  Opportunities in Travel & Tourism session.

“Heidi Van de Watt’s examples from South Africa showed the value of mentoring staff, “ said Christopher Warren, director of the ICRT, who moderator of the session. “These examples not only show how beneficial it is for companies to grow their own talent but the economic empowerment it can provide for low-income employees who remain loyal and highly productive.”

UAE based speakers underlined the gap between the sector’s skill needs and the quality of student knowledge from hospitality colleges. Samir Arora, general manager of The Retreat Palm Dubai pointed out that very few colleges provided the level of standards suitable for today’s highly demanding and competitive hospitality sector. Internal training was key and Samir himself was an example of Accor’s success progressing from waiter to general manager. Professor Harold Goodwin underlined this example by pointing out that tourism was one of the rare examples where staff have the scope to progress their careers.

Christopher Warren stressed that as tourism continues to grow it must fill skills gap with well-designed training to meet changing operating standards,  encourages staff loyalty by building capacity from applies structured mentoring strategies to transfer practical knowledge to new recruits.

Vocation Education Training – Staff Delivering Sustainable Tourism Experiences

Customer need to play their part in sustainability and staff are the perfect partner to introduce them to new innovative methods

Sustainability is today on the agenda of the vast majority of transnational corporations and frequently for large, medium and even small sized travel and hospitality companies. For those making the transition to involve their customers directly they will need to train their staff to persuasively engage. Directly involving staff is a new innovative direct for many firms and matches changing societal trends:

  • 90% of shoppers said they are more likely to trust and be loyal to socially responsible companies (Moving Worlds.org)

Staff also expect their employers to strive for high socially responsible standards and want to participate:

  • 51% of employees say that helping “making a better world”  and making “a contribution to society” are essentials for their ideal job (Net Impact’s ‘What Workers Want’)
  • Over 90% female and 76% male Gen X and baby boomers “feel it is important to contribute to their community…through work” (Center for Talent Innovation)

To progress sustainable goals we, therefore, should now strongly engage with staff and customers.  Staff can directly encourage customers to choose more responsible options, apply adaptive behaviours to conserve resources, donate to charitable causes or community projects the firm supports, they can also select your recommended sustainable partners at the destinations. In the service industry, customers can co-create sustainable consumption.

Staff develop skills which can explain sustainability in an easy to understand engaging manner

Our training programme follows Australian Standards for Vocational Education Training to Certificate 3 level. It follows a skills delivery focus and assessed throughout. Participants who successfully pass receive a certificate of competency provided certified by the International Centre for Responsible Tourism – Australia. The training programme delivers the My Green Butler programme.

Each training programme is tailored to the firm’s own context and involves the tr

Participants learn how to present a firms sustainability programme and ask for their commitment

aining consult visiting the site(s) assessing the proposed customer experience and facilities and the expected role staff should play.  Participants are training in communicating responsible sustainable messages politely and persuasively, to convey the site(s) specific characteristics and desired conservation behaviours to save water, energy and reduce carbon emissions and waste. These operating standards, pro-environmental amenities, services, and systems are then integrated into the training so that it is 100% relevant to that specific firm’s sustainability experiences.

 

Call Christopher Warren now to learn more: +61 2 4465 1408

Overtourism – Conference in Iceland

The 13th International Conference on Responsible Tourism in Destinations takes place in Iceland 29-30 September 2017. This working symposium will explore strategies to ensure sustainable tourism development where “overtourism” is occurring through local management practices and empowered communities. We envisage that this symposium will identify the research agenda on overtourism and we hope that research partnerships will emerge from it and means of knowledge dissemination identified. We would like both academics and practitioners to participate. More information and registration.

More focused research for better tourism innovation

Is the knowledge gap too wide to stimulate sustainable tourism innovation?

There is currently insufficient research to assist the transition for tourist accommodation to become a low carbon sector that also uses water sustainably, says Christopher Warren, director of the ICRT – Australia. Christopher and co-author Professor Susanne Becken have just  published an extensive review of 110 scientific papers that study resource saving at tourist accommodation and found significant research gaps that make it unclear how accommodation can make deep game changing savings required in the future.

What the Gaps cover

These gaps include:

  • renewable energy
  • renewable water
  • non-hotel accommodation types
  • building design
  • climate and cultural influence
  • smart technology
  • guest engagement

Lack of Data

They could only find a small number of studies which detail consumption amounts, so there is insufficient data to establish benchmarks and track savings. This limitation is made worse by the lack of studies which measure the influence of seasonality and climate over time (an important when considering Climate Change and adaptation).

They also found many studies lacked detail that allows us to unambiguously interpret findings. Overall the studies used different measures and terms making it hard to compare results and build a body of knowledge. Only a few studies indicated a return on investment, which is worrying as new technologies tend to be sold on the idea of a financial benefit.

Without clarity, deep savings become more difficult because there are in fact a multitude of factors which influence consumption.  This demonstrates that technical efficiencies alone cannot be relied upon as the sole method to save. Building a solid body of knowledge and developing the skills to run accommodation more sustainably is therefore essential; since it is human behaviour that controls resource use by how a firm is run, how savings methods might be organised and how guests can consume less.  To stimulate service innovation Christopher says we require a more consistent research approach and to link expertise that tests and refines solutions.

What we should do

Tourism should now establish collaboration networks between scientists, practitioners and entrepreneurs which bridge the knowledge gaps and accelerate sustainability-oriented innovation.

How we can do it

The ICRT-Australia is running a collaborative research study to test a service innovation, expressions of interest to participate are welcomed.

The ICRT can develop customise training programmes to help destination managers and tourism firms build the capacity for sustainable tourism and implement responsible projects to achieve a positive change.

Read Christopher’s summary report and proposed research framework here

2017 edition of Progress in Responsible Tourism

The latest edition of Progress in Responsible Tourism is now available here. There are excellent articles which provide case examples of responsible tourism in practice (World Responsible Tourism Awards 2016 and Irish award winners), issues with child protection and volunteer tourism, how to communicate responsible tourism and guest engagement (Can the Hospitality sector ask customers to help them become more sustainable?) and more.

‘How’ should tourism play its role in meeting the Paris Agreement?

The ICRT contributed to the Sustainable Tourism in a Changing Climate Conference, a side event to the COP22 Marrakech conference. Cecilia Lopez y Royo (UN coordinator), Christopher Warren (ICRT), Javier Rodriguez Losada (Tesouros de Galicia) and Salli Felton (The Travel Foundation)

The ICRT contributed to the Sustainable Tourism in a Changing Climate Conference, a side event to the COP22 Marrakech conference. Cecilia Lopez y Royo (UN coordinator), Christopher Warren (ICRT), Javier Rodriguez Losada (Tesouros de Galicia) and Salli Felton (The Travel Foundation)

Tourism was urged to discuss ‘how’ it can get involved with governments to contribute to meeting the Paris Agreement and reducing emissions by Patricia Espinosa, UNFCCC executive secretary. Her video address, was at the UN’s COP22 side event ‘Sustainable Tourism in a Changing Climate, a symposium aimed at increasing awareness on tourism and climate change-related issues and encourage the sector to engage in actions that reinforce national commitments to the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

“Sustainable tourism creates opportunities and assembles partners to help transform the industry towards low emissions and more efficient and less polluting operations. We must make tourism and every other industry contributor to our climate change action and a sustainable future”, said Espinosa.

The event focused in particular in the need for partnerships with the private sector and the role of sustainable transportation to accelerate climate action in tourism. The ICRT presented  a ‘real world’ example of how tourism can engage with visitors to reduce consumption and emission.

“Climate change can only be addressed if actors from all parts of society – governments, businesses, NGOs and consumers – make a global and broad shift towards sustainable consumption and production patterns. Accounting for 10% of GDP, 7% of the world’s exports and one in 11 jobs, tourism is one of the main economic sectors in the world, and as such has to be at the core of this essential transition,” said Charles Arden-Clarke, Head of the 10YFP Secretariat.

The International Symposium was part of the 3-day COP22 Tourism Side Events and is part of the partnership programme led by UNWTO aimed at accelerating the shift towards more sustainable consumption and production. The ICRT is a 10 YFP partner and has developed a collaborative knowledge sharing initiative for the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development  to demonstrate how tourist accommodation can play a more assertive role in reducing consumption and emissions.

Tourism committed to fight climate change – COP 22

The role of tourism in implementing the Paris Agreement was on the table on the occasion of the 22nd Session of the UNFCCC Conference of Parties (COP22). The International Symposium of the Sustainable Tourism Programme of the United Nations 10-Year Framework of Programmes on Sustainable Consumption and Production (10YFP), held during COP 22, discussed how to advance Sustainable Tourism in a Changing Climate.

The Symposium aimed at increasing awareness on tourism and climate change-related issues and encourage the sector to engage in actions that reinforce national commitments to the Paris Agreement and the 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda.

“The tourism sector is both a vector and a victim of climate change and we are fully committed to contribute to reach the objectives set by the Paris Agreement. This event was essential to advance this agenda, especially the discussion on measurement and reporting requirements as a basis for identifying and prioritizing climate action in tourism”, said UNWTO Secretary-General, Taleb Rifai.

“Sustainable tourism creates opportunities and assembles partners to help transform the industry towards low emissions and more efficient and less polluting operations. We must make tourism and every other industry contributor to our climate change action and a sustainable future”, said Patricia Espinosa, UNFCCC Executive Secretary, in her video address to the event.

The event focused in particular in the need for partnerships with the private sector and the role of sustainable transportation to accelerate climate action in tourism.

“Climate change can only be addressed if actors from all parts of society – governments, businesses, NGOs and consumers – make a global and broad shift towards sustainable consumption and production patterns. Accounting for 10% of GDP, 7% of the world’s exports and one in 11 jobs, tourism is one of the main economic sectors in the world, and as such has to be at the core of this essential transition,” said Charles Arden-Clarke, Head of the 10YFP Secretariat.

The International Symposium was part of the 3-day COP22 Tourism Side Events organized by the 10YFP Sustainable Tourism Programme and hosted by the Ministry of Tourism of Morocco. The Programme is a partnership led by UNWTO with the Governments of France, Morocco and the Republic of Korea as co-leads, with support of the 10YFP Secretariat at UN Environment, aimed at accelerating the shift towards more sustainable consumption and production. It was followed by a networking event involving financial institutions on sustainable tourism as well as by the Annual Conference on Saturday 12 November, where members of the network exchanged experiences and discussed priorities and next steps in the 10YFP Sustainable Tourism Programme.