You have decided to invest in a greener and fairer world, safeguarding the environment and promoting sustainable tourism. Your accommodation has solar panels or recovers rainwater to irrigate the organic garden, you use ecological detergents or you have installed low consumption light bulbs, all to reduce the environmental impact. But do your guests know it?
In a world where communication is everything, it is essential to describe yourself in the right way. By doing this you can inspire each of your guests, even those who have chosen you for other reasons, to be more sustainable, providing them with useful information to apply this lifestyle even at home. But you can also create a Unique Value Proposition, that characteristic that differentiates you from others and that makes you more competitive. A choice therefore both for marketing reasons and for sharing and spreading good practices.
First of all online, on your social networks and on your website, then inside your accommodation with stories, posters and tips: let’s find out together how to effectively communicate the sustainability of your hotel.
A green online presence
Your website must be focused on sustainability: the user must immediately understand that he is in front of a facility different from the others, a hotel that has decided that safeguarding the environment and the future of the Planet comes first. Add the Ecobnb banners, highlight all your sustainability features by telling what you do to reduce your impact and to respect nature. The same goes for your social networks: look for the right hashtags to tell your idea of sustainability and hospitality, show your followers the progress you are making and the new actions you are implementing to be greener.
Images and words that inspire
Welcome your guests in an accommodation where sustainability is a lifestyle and the environmental impact has no secrets. Through brochures, posters and other material that you think is suitable for you, explain to guests what sustainable tourism means, why it is necessary, what you do and what they could do. Focus on positive messages: remembering with images and short captivating phrases that it takes little to improve the world can inspire change.
The simplicity of small gestures
Clear and detailed instructions call for action. For example, you can remind your guests to turn off the tap while brushing their teeth to save 15 liters or to turn off the light when they leave the room to save energy. Also, make it easy to take part in your green lifestyle. If the separate collection within your hotel will be intuitive, if it is possible to reach you easily without a car, if your food is organic and good and if there is no lack of comforts, guests will realize how easy (and beautiful!) it is to be sustainable and will therefore be much more likely to adopt these behaviors even when they return home.
Stories and tips
Of course, images are worth a thousand words, but there is nothing like telling yourself while establishing a real relationship with guests. When you welcome them or during their stay, take the opportunity to tell them your story, to listen to them and perhaps provide them with directions on bike routes or other eco-tourism itineraries to do in the surroundings, always trying to find something that suits to everyone’s wishes and needs.
Follow our advice and always remember to customize them based on the type of your hotel, your history and your tastes: only in this way will everyone know how much and how your hotel is green and everyone will choose it for this.
Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash
