One of the first things I do when arriving in a hotel room is checking the bathroom. And one of the first things I do is removing the sign with a text that asks me to help save the planet by reusing the towels. What a sustainable hospitality hypocrisy! Companies want to save the own money and not the planet. And most customers are the same by the way. I propose another text. Because the planet needs to be saved.
In every bathroom of the JW Marriott Hotel & Resorts you will find a card with the following text: ‘Dear guest, Save our planet. Every day millions of gallons of water are used to wash towels that have only been used once. You make the difference. A towel hanging up means ‘I will use again’. A towel on the floor means ‘please change’. Thank you for helping us conserve the earth’s vital resources’.
And many more hotels in the world do so. The website challenge for sustainability explains why. The idea behind it is that a towel and sheet reuse program reduces the number of times towels and sheets are washed. That saves hundreds of gallons of water each year.
Washing towels and sheets that only have been used one time is usually unnecessary, the website states. The benefits are simply explained. The water, electricity and manpower that is saved by not cleaning the towels saves money and off course the environment. Important is the fact that it is a voluntary program. There are two possibilities; guests are encouraged to use their towels a second or third time and a program were guests also have to make an explicit request to clean linens when needed. The last aspect also extend the useful life of sheets, towels, and washing machines and dryers. And again saves money and helps the environment.
There we are. Not only the environment benefits from reusing the sheets and towels, it also and perhaps most importantly saves money. But do clients care? Do they voluntarily want to participate in using dirty towels and dirty sheets? And even better, would they pick a hotel just because it has an environmental program?
I know that I want to save the planet but not necessarily the cash position of the hotel. What do other people think? Booking.com asked 32,000 travellers from 16 countries about their attitudes towards sustainable travel and only 10% said they took a sustainable trip in 2014. While these respondents seem interested in sustainable travel that doesn’t mean they’ve actually booked these accommodation types and mass, at least not yet (Peltier, 2015).
And the 10% that did book a trip to a sustainable properties, did they so to save the planet or to relax in a good hotel? I hope you will not be disappointed, but people want to book a luxury accommodation. And those accommodations are most of the time green. This association between luxury and sustainability aligns with study which found that hotels in the United States that haven a LEED-certificate, or those that meet certain sustainability criteria, are the more expensive and luxury accommodations (Walsman, 2014).
The conclusion is that people who visit a green hotel often don’t visit it because it is green, but luxurious. So why bother those people with the irritating signs about reusing your towels and sheets? Because it primarily saves money. Brebbia and Pineda claim in their research that financial savings are one of the most significant factors that influence the implementation of environmental initiatives in a hotel (Pineda, 2004). This is especially evident for hotel businesses that operate in a highly competitive market and where the cost of energy, water and waste disposal are high. The research show that hotel don’t really care about the planet but think more about cash. For example, a hotel can reduce its energy consumption by 20-40% without customers start complaining about the service.
Hotel operators that can maximize their efficiency and reduce waste will be more cost-effective than their competitors. And low costs will, when customers keep coming, result in more profits. And that is exactly what happens (Houdré, 2008). The researcher found that the revenue benefit applied in hotels of all types.
In alignment with the study of Brebbia and Pineda they also found that the biggest effect on the profit is found when it concerns upscale or luxury properties located in urban or suburban locations. This makes sense, because many of the LEED standards involve a hotel’s connection to public transit or other resources typical of urban areas (Walsman, 2014). Not only thanks to the costs and environment saving program, but also because they can charge higher rates when the state that they are a ‘green hotel.’
It is clear that the environment benefits when hotels use less energy. How much is hard to check. Hotels like to state that a lot of water is saved, but in what way that really contributes to a better world, stays unclear.
But let’s focus again on the environment and the customers. Do customers care and does it matter how hotels try to involve our customers? Yes it does. Hotels even have to be careful not to overstate the claim that the save the planet. If people sense that your message has a hypocrisy element in it, it will have a backlash on customer satisfaction, a study shows (Wagner, 2009). So when you ask people to save the planet but in fact they are saving your income, you take a big risk. In the end you could lose customers. And count me in. I am sick and tired of being lied to.
But I am a reasonable person. And I don’t need fresh towels every day. So how do you get me in? When will I reuse my towels and not have the feeling being lied to? Researchers Dan and Chip Heath from Stanford University revealed a way to convince people to reuse their towels, as documented in their book, titled Switch (Heath, 2010). In an experiment, a hotel changed the messaging on its bathroom signs to read The majority of guests at the hotel reuse their towels at least once during their stay. There was absolutely no mention of protecting the environment to conserve water of save electricity or other reasons. No information about of a green earth we want to protect. The idea was that people would participate more the when a more classic sign would be in their room.
It worked. Towel reuse increased by 26 percent. In Switch, the Heath brothers call this an example of “contagious behaviour.” The real changes seem to occur when people simply want to follow others, the majority. As long as they sympathize with that majority. As people we don’t want to be shut out or ostracized, that’s why we go along. We want that good feeling that happens when we belong to a group that’s larger than just us.
Other research shows that you have to use different messages with different groups (Barber, 2014). People want to help you, if you address them in a way they appreciate. And by doing so you save the planet and satisfy your customers.
So, my conclusion is crystal clear. Stop the sustainable hospitality hypocrisy, stop the lies about reusing towels in hotels and treat me like the adult I am. Then I am more than willing to help you save the planet and your wallet.