I love hearing stories about hotels and companies that make a difference when it comes to charitable contributions, volunteer time and other philanthropies. So much of the hotel business is about local communities, and hearing stories about how hoteliers give back by helping the people in their neighborhoods makes my day.
Just this week I received a note from the folks at Extended Stay America that the company had donated 25 roomnights in my name to its Hotel Keys of Hope program, which provides hotel roomnights to cancer patients receiving treatment away from home. It’s a great program that capitalizes on what hotel companies do best—provide a restful night’s sleep to people who can’t be at home.
I hear countless stories throughout the year about hoteliers doing similar philanthropic projects that capitalize on the hospitality inherent in the industry—hotels that donate bedding to homeless shelters, towels to animal rescue organizations or food to meal programs—the list goes on and on.
That’s why I was particularly interested recently to learn about two hotel projects that are trying to apply this type of philanthropy to the industry in unique ways.
The first is Kind Traveler, which is an online travel agency of sorts that launched in early August. Here’s how it works: People can book hotels on kindtraveler.com, choose to make a donation to a charity and in return receive a lower rate to book directly at the property. For example, I chose the Virgin Hotel Chicago. The site showed a rate of $258/night, but if I chose to donate $10 per night to the charity of my choice, I could get a $215 per night rate, which I could book with the hotel directly.
Right now the site supports 12 charities and 18 hotels, so it’s by no means huge, but I’m sure it appeals to travelers looking for benefits like this. The hotel partners are ones that have chosen to participate, so they’ve weighed the benefits versus any potential cost or revenue loss to them.
The second unique project I learned about this week is The Purpose Hotel. Have you heard about this? It’s a hotel project whose founder, Jeremy Cowart, is raising funds in part through Kickstarter to launch a hotel that, as he puts it, “changes the world while you sleep.”
How does that work? Cowart says he’s creating a business model for hotels—the inaugural Purpose Hotel will be in Nashville if it gets funding—where every aspect of a guest’s stay is connected to some sort of charitable contribution. Products, case goods, bedding and amenities are all connected to a cause, and guests can learn about those causes throughout the hotel. Proceeds from all purchases made at the hotel—from your roomnight to your Wi-Fi upgrade cost—go to support causes like the prevention of human trafficking.
It’s a lofty goal. A really lofty one, considering that the Kickstarter phase will fund only the first part of the overall project, which is drawing up more concrete architectural plans.
So yes, lofty. And small. Kind Traveler and The Purpose Hotel are both small endeavors at the end of the day. What kind of difference will they make in the long run? Hard to tell. Maybe the better question to ask is whether projects like this will serve to increase awareness and move the needle just a bit when it comes to hotels and hotel companies giving back.
Share of the week
I know this came out more than a month ago now, but I finally got around to reading KPMG’s U.S. CEO Outlook 2016 this week, and I want to share it here because it’s a big kick in the pants that how all our companies look now is not necessarily how they’ll look or act in the next three years.
Case in point? The most interesting factoid I pulled was “Two-thirds of CEOs (surveyed for the report) believe that the next three years will be more critical for their industry than the previous 50 years.”
Whoa.
If you’d like to philosophize with me on the topic, or have any other thoughts to share, leave a comment below, or you can email me at sricca@hotelnewsnow.com or find me on Twitter @HNN_Steph.
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