Since the end of pandemic restrictions, we have seen huge demand for travel, but we have also seen the costs of both flights and hotels rise, particularly over the past year.
This price escalation has been troubling to consumers. This vacation season, travelers are finding themselves in an odd spot.
In the United Kingdom, and probably elsewhere, there is a real cognitive dissonance: We see prices going up, and we see stories on the news about investors making record profits at energy and rail companies, but then staff are striking because they’re not paid enough. Travelers are caught in the middle, feeling bad for housekeeping but also feeling that they just want to go on vacation.
Why does it have to be so hard?
People are cognitively and financially misers and, if we feel that we are being forced to pay a high price, we are likely to think “if you’re going to make me pay like a king, I'm going to live like a king.”
It will be very challenging for travel companies, particularly hotels, to live up to some of the ESG objectives that they have set. Inflation changes the framing, and it changes the incoming mental mindset of the consumer. It becomes harder to encourage sustainable behaviors in guests in this current context.
At the same time, if you’re using sustainability to attract guests but also to justify higher pricing, you will also meet resistance, with the exception of the very action-oriented, dedicated sustainability warrior. I feel that sustainability is going to constantly be a tertiary consumer motivation, although it will never be a primary one, such as destination and price. It will very rarely, if ever, be something guests pay a premium for.
That said, hotels should not give up on sustainability or on seeing it as a point of differentiation. Small interventions will affect behavior. For example, using smart lighting or offering smaller plates at the buffet.
For much of the past 50 years in the hotel sector, we have seen a race to standardization, but this is no longer relevant, and, of late, the opposite seems to be the case.
The nature of a hotel brand is changing as brand firms fall over themselves to launch softer collection brands.
It is much less a prescriptive playbook and much more a flexible framework within which hotels can operate. This is a clear nod to evolving consumer preference, as travelers no longer feel that they must have the same food and the same buffet at breakfast wherever they are in the world.
Increasingly, guests understand about seasonality, and hotels can work with this. Firstly, we recognize that seasons are real and wonderful, and that they are changing in our lifetime. Secondly, there is a nostalgia — for example, for that pumpkin soup your mother made in the autumn — and on a more rational side, it doesn’t take much explaining for people to understand that having pineapple in January at a business hotel in Birmingham is not normal.
The convergence of local plus sustainable subconsciously taps into people’s understanding of sustainability, and, more consciously, it is a way for hotels to talk about sustainability.
Consumer behavior also has changed a lot since standardization came in.
Do we really want that expansive breakfast buffet, with its salmon glistening under lights? That’s not how we eat every day. There must be a way to deliver high-quality service and experiences, without the Willy Wonka overkill.
Hotels also need to look to innovation when talking about sustainability. People are inspired by innovation, but they are not inspired hearing about how many times they have used their towels. Utilize sustainable actions and frame them as innovations. Here is an example: If you offer transfers, make sure the cars are electric, and that the guest knows this.
But we shouldn’t just be looking at guest behaviors; we should be looking at corporate behaviors. Are we just renewing contracts with certain foods, suppliers and energy suppliers because it’s the easiest thing to do, and are we really holding up our ESG objectives and commitments against those businesses?
Framing is key to how you share your sustainable actions.
At the moment, there exists real cynicism, so if you are telling guests how much money you saved changing light bulbs, then they will probably want to hear what the benefit is to them.
Travelers need to feel that we’re all on the same side again.
Ted Utoft is CEO, United Kingdom, and chief growth officer global at BVA Nudge Consulting.
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