Concerns that the pandemic would mean sustainable goals being abandoned were unfounded, according to Xenia zu Hohenlohe, managing partner, Considerate Group.
Sustainability was seen as being more important than ever, with guests, investors and brands driving change in the area.
zu Hohenlohe told us that she had not seen a shift in the approach by investors and brands to sustainable issues, commenting: “In terms of operations and development, none really, as those brands and hotel businesses that were already committed to integrating sustainability into their operations have so far not made any declarations about reversing this course.
“There will of course have to be some adjustments when it comes to the new Health & Safety measures required of hotels to implement, however once those are clear in each country or region those can also be complied to in a ’sustainable or eco-friendly’ manner. It’s all about finding the right solutions and communicating these clearly to your guests so that they can trust your approach as a hotel.”
She was echoed by Margarida Caldeira, director, Broadway Malyan, who said: “In many ways sustainability and the sustainability agenda is now more important than ever. Hygiene and cleanliness are already well established in the hospitality industry and now heightened by the Covid-19 crisis, the measures being take are likely to be short term and reactive.
“The hospitality industry cannot exist in isolation to wider global trends and sustainability issues and our custodianship of this planet have never been in sharper focus. Living responsibly and therefore sustainability will be an important measure by which the hospitality sector defines their guest experience but more importantly, it will also be a key measure on how a guest judges their own experience.
“Sustainable practices where there is a focus on local, organic, wellness and unique eco-friendly experiences will be key long term drivers for the industry and must not be undermined in the name of pragmatism as the industry responds to Covid-19.”
zu Hohenlohe added: “Certainly here in Europe I see an increased awareness as people have understood the link between a pandemic such as this and the lack of environmental conservation or indeed air pollution.”
Addressing concerns that a need for greater cleanliness could mean greater use of damaging chemicals, zu Hohenlohe said: “There are plenty of sanitisers & cleaning products, which are eco-certified and kill germs and bacteria as much as their chemical equivalents, but are less harmful to the environment and pollute our run off waters less.”
Prior to the pandemic, brands and governments alike were signing up to policies on single-use plastics and zu Hohenlohe felt this was unlikely to be derailed. She said: “The EU’s Green Deal is too important of a political agenda to be sidelined at this point, with too many Green EU MEP now also in Brussels, a lot of the Recovery Funds will be linked to climate commitments of companies and countries.
“The plastic ban on single use items such as the famous straws, will not be reversed in my mind, however big consumer goods companies such as Danone, who owns Evian and Volvic Water for examples, are really making headway in the recycling of plastic materials for their own packaging of beverages and other products. So, what I think we will be seeing is much more usage of RPET (recycled PET bottles) being used for water.
“As for the bathroom amenities, my pledge would be stop offering those for free to guests, it only really started after 9/11 that they came flooding into hotels, as no one could travel with their own bigger-sized bottles any longer. And 9/11 was a massive disruptive crisis for the tourism sector, so maybe this Covid-19 crisis could see the sector being bold about no longer offering bathroom amenities for free, but have them available for guests to purchase if need be? Or indeed big spenders which can be re-filled for luxury hotels.”
Insight: While we were all leaving the planet well enough alone and being locked in our bedrooms for being bad, it flourished. Dolphins cavorted in newly-blue lagoons, birds sang unhindered and goats overthrew people to take over towns in Wales. It hasn’t all been ideal, but the scale has largely tipped in favour of good.
Now, when travel is restarting, the danger is that those benefits will be lost in the race to make up lost revenue. The hope is that pent-up demand from gazing out of the same window day after day will manifest in a frenzy of travel.
Putting a check on this are the airlines and governments. The former are not planning a return to full capacity for the foreseeable and the latter have imposed travel restrictions, some sane, some not. It is also likely that leisure travel will be limited by depressed income and corporate travel by the same - plus concerns over employees not picking up the virus on the road and dying and/or becoming litigious.
But it shouldn’t be that we have to rely on the negative to push the positive. The hope is that sustainability will stick.