This is Episode 2 of the Customer Love series. Listen to Episode 1 here.
In the middle of this episode, “From Customer Love to Planet Love”, Eric Ricaurte, CEO of Greenview burst (nearly) into song, reciting the lyrics of Barry White’s Practise What You Preach – “You say there’s a lesson that you want to teach? Well, here I am, baby, practice what you preach.”
Well, there’s certainly a lot of practices travel suppliers have to put in place to fulfil and deliver on its responsibility to build a more sustainable industry, and everyone, from the grassroots to giants, must do their part.
And Ricaurte and our other guest in this episode, Danielle D’Silva, Head of Sustainability, Booking.com are certainly trying to do their part in their centrestage roles in travel’s delicate and complicated dance with sustainability.
It’s interesting the different paths they have each taken to arrive at this common junction – Danielle through a scholarly path and deep research into highly niche topics such as an ethnography on the Muslim community who cares for elephants used for Hindu processions in Varanasi, and the role social enterprises play in preserving cultural heritage in Cambodia and Eric who got an early introduction to urban farming during his childhood in rural Ohio, and an odd job stint in “a random lodge in the northeast corner of Costa Rica”, which opened his eyes to the kind of experiences travellers were willing to travel for.
Danielle has a couple of key goals. “The first is to operate sustainably and build a culture of sustainability,” she says, with the aim to be net zero emissions by 2040.
“The second pillar is to make it easier for travellers to make more sustainable choices. We hear from our travellers that they want to travel more sustainably, but they’re struggling to do it for a variety of reasons.
“We (also) have to make it easier for travel providers. They also want to engage in sustainability and meet this growing demand, but they’re also facing barriers. So in this area, we’re trying to create this flywheel where we help the supply grow to a more sustainable level, we then make it easier for travellers to make those choices either by displaying them or making sure that they’re meeting the needs that they have and they don’t feel like sustainability is a sacrifice and that we can really, really grow that demand.”
Booking.com’s target – by 2027, “we would like to have more than 50% of our bookings made with a more sustainable offering”.
To Eric, it’s the transition of what was essentially a niche segment of travel, started by “rebels”, into the mainstream and how we juggle with that transformation. On the one hand, Booking.com’s research shows that 76% of global travellers want to travel more sustainably, and yet they’re having to balance their spend, and may thus not be that willing to spend on experiences that were perceived as “rebel” or “niche”.
Danielle explains “… Travellers are obviously telling us that they feel that sustainable options, or more sustainable options are too expensive. And I think that travellers have so many perceptions around what sustainable offering is, and not all of them are, are necessarily correct.
“A lot of it comes from what Eric pointed out earlier – this niche, sustainable travel of the past versus the mainstream.”
She adds, “In this economic climate, we have to be realistic about this (costs) being a big driver and potentially a big deterrent for travelers and think about ways to break down the perception that these options are going to be too expensive, or maybe not provide the value that they’re looking for.
“It’s going to be an interesting challenge over the next couple of years to bring it truly to the mainstream and the comfort level of all of our travellers.”
Both agree implementation has to be at the property level. Says Danielle, “For the last few years, we’ve had a big movement on ESG and corporate sustainability. And there’s been also some regulation coming into effect here in Europe, that will start to move some of the larger bodies in the industry, but the bulk of SMEs aren’t totally equipped to take part in the green transition or the sustainability movement, and they need some support.”
Working in partnership with the UN World Tourism Organization, Booking.com is producing short video tutorials across energy, food management, water management and waste management with real actionable steps for accommodation.
Eric says “it’s gonna take a little bit of everything, it’s gonna take everybody …”
“Right now, there’s a big focus on just disclosing and calculating a bunch of stuff … which are difficult. But people have to do it. And so the regulation can be somewhat of a distraction to short term in some cases. But when it can get down and move the needle at the destination or the property levels, that’s where it can really make a difference. And we’re seeing a lot more of that.”
Big chains can help give scale to this – “we need local hoteliers getting together, sharing best practices, finding solutions, and that’s gonna help move the needle.”
Both also agree the next wave in sustainability is biodiversity which is positive in the sense in that it will get the industry out of its carbon tunnel vision, says Danielle, into areas that travellers can relate to.
Says Eric, “It’s exciting to me, it’s like reinvigorating, because it goes back to those original days, connecting people to the jungle and really figuring out what’s the value of biodiversity? This is where tourism is going to be right in the centre of this because it comes down to the human interaction with nature at that place.”
Adds Danielle, “Biodiversity is a better lens for travel than just having carbon tunnel vision…
“The travel Industry has obviously this large impact of carbon, which can be so disassociated from communities because where it’s emitted isn’t necessarily where the impact is. But biodiversity in nature really allows us to take not only that environmental lens, but really zoom into those local communities and understand the local destination level impact of travel positive and negative.”
As for the books they recommend if you want to dig deeper into this super important topic in travel, and how we can all move from Customer Love to Planet Love, have a listen to the podcast:
