"Redefining Sustainability Immersive Experience” By Gaurav Bhagi (Cluster General Manager)
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HOSPITALITY has been among the sectors hit hardest by COVID-19 shutdowns. But with travel beginning to return in parts of the world, many hotels are springing back to life.
The agenda for recovery cannot simply be about getting ‘back to normal,’ though. The travel market has changed—permanently. Leisure and business travellers alike have new priorities and needs. In both segments, sustainability is a bigger priority than ever before—especially but not only when it comes to carbon emissions.
Hospitality has a unique opportunity to take the lead on sustainability across all dimensions of ESG—environmental, social and governance—and build it into the core of the way the sector works. The industry players that thrive will be those who meet their customers’ demands for more sustainable travel options. Those who fall short risk being left behind.
The landscape for hospitality has changed permanently. The sector has a unique opportunity to lead the way on sustainability as it gets back to growth.
The benefits for hospitality are clear: aligning with consumers’ values and desire to be able to travel sustainably; winning back business travellers as corporates bear down on their carbon emissions; capitalizing on the growing willingness of consumers to pay a little more for sustainability; and playing its part in the global effort to limit temperature rises and avoid catastrophic climate change. Thriving in the new world means putting sustainability at the heart of your strategy for recovery.
Sustainable development is the responsible use of productive resources in a development project or undertaking to safeguard long-term environmental, social and economic sustainability. Sustainable development is adopted to provide lasting socio-economic benefit to all project stakeholders without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
A range of socio-cultural, economic and environmental issues must be considered and balanced to ensure the sustainability of development projects. These include the use of energy and water in the development and operation of hotels as well as the moral, ethical, social and political impact of taking action.
As per Gaurav Bhagi, we will create ecologically friendly properties and believe in giving people clean air, clean water and clean food. A life that is sustainable and reminds us of how people used to live about 100 years back. With an ideology of co-existing with nature and reliving a time where you consume water directly sourced from the hills, where you can forage and cook on open fires and share space with neighbours who provide the best produce that makes its way into our seasonal menu.
We will offer immersive experiences in the form of village tours which include sharing a meal with the local family, hosted by our women entrepreneurs. Constant efforts with respect to carbon offset by practicing resource efficiency and swearing by green mobility while involving our guests in experiences like tree planting and local ecological conservation.
In an effort to work with the locals, ensuring that we grow alongside them and create local impact, we not only employ people from neighbouring communities but also make sure that around 40% of our guests’ travel spends is circulated back to the local economy. This is done by ensuring that all procurement with respect to the property is done only locally. The in-house gift shophouse would comprise of condiments, handicrafts and various types of locally made items that are procured from women entrepreneurs in an effort to support their venture.
With focus on using earth friendly materials like stone, bamboo, fiber, certified wood and rattan would help the environment and ensure the best practices are followed across the hospitality sector.
The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (UN SDGs) are the blueprint to achieve a better and more sustainable future. The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development establishes 17 goals adopted by UN member states as the action plan to achieve sustainable development.
Some of the 10 best sustainability practices we would aim at are;
∙ Energy conservation
∙ Amenities
∙ Waste reduction and efficiency
∙ Promoting sustainable means of transportation
∙ Choosing cleaning products wisely with minimum impact on the environment
∙ Careful selection of local food products
∙ Encouraging guests to make sustainable decisions
∙ Promoting ecotourism
∙ Water conservation
∙ Operational changes
Gaurav comments that properties should be constructed safeguarding natural contours, it would feel like to co-exist with nature and relive a time where people lived sustainably.
Through our work on Sustainability, we aim at forging deep connections with the environment in the form of authentic experiences and engaging extensively with the local community. We are also extremely grateful for the farmers who grow seasonal produce and enable guests to undertake a complete farm to fork experience. Guests at our properties get to undertake intimate experiences with local villagers and learning about their sustainable way of life, a practice that has made a reality at its own properties.
Our staff is trained on sustainability processes (SOPs) which is reflected in our efforts towards reducing carbon footprint. Water saving initiatives like grey water usage for gardening, waste saving initiatives (including food waste and composting) and forest conservation by planting trees are a few examples of how our property operates as net zero.
At Mukteshwar, in Uttarakhand where our luxury villa is located, guests are transported to a place where women open up their homes, cook, clean and host them. Working alongside the locals, we turned a neighbourhood village into a financial opportunity for women entrepreneurs and roped in local women to help host village tours and lunches thus ensuring financial independence for all of them.
Be a part of their world and experience a setting where women are engaged in reviving local handicrafts, grow food in family farms using sustainable techniques and rear cattle that provide for all your dairy needs.
Also, the zero-waste kitchen offers guests a selection of handpicked recipes that are made from scratch using energy efficient cooking techniques along with slow cooking methods that ensure quality flavour by retaining the food's natural nutrients to the fullest with a range of options for F&B choices.
Live the good life, guest will immerse themselves in experiences that are deep rooted in culture and sustainability.
How has the word “Luxury” changed in this century?
Once upon a time, “luxury” was a material concept often defined by the biggest, shiniest and most expensive. Over the years, as people have become more discerning, luxury has become more about a state of mind. At its core, though, it's always been about status, but it’s shifted from material possession and is now more about “Who I am.” People want to show that they are more ethical, creative, connected and tasteful than the masses. With growing concerns about our impact on the environment, luxury and sustainability are almost interchangeable.
Luxury is not and cannot be this wasteful excess with this nonsense of constantly replenishing stuff with new stuff, like linen and towel changed every day; having soap changed every time you wash your hands; having one hundred-bathroom amenities, slippers wrapped in plastic, the fruit basket wrapped in plastic that nobody eats, the list goes on and on.
We have to acknowledge the hypocrisy of this luxury. We can’t have own private luxury in big shiny new-build resorts without depriving others in some way of their land, their resources. It’s an inconvenient and uncomfortable truth. Bigger, faster, shinier, warmer, cooler means more steel, more cement, concrete, more plastic, more AC, more diesel and gas, more water. More, more, more. This luxury is unsustainable.
On the flip side, Small is the only way I see luxury quotes “Gaurav Bhagi” as you can have several small teams in charge and they can be local people.
Post-pandemic, we can see more luxury travellers wanting to explore the wildest places through experiential travel, and to create experiences like never before. People are more interested in provenance and storytelling on how,
where, when, and who — rather than just sleeping in grand, luxurious hotel rooms. Additionally, awareness on how every decision can play a significant role in preserving nature is crucial for responsible tourism.
Why is sustainability important in hotels?
According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, hotels are accountable for one percent of global emissions. This number will continue to rise as hotel demand increases, which is why implementing sustainability initiatives in hotels is so important to mitigate this negative impact.
Beyond the importance of hotels reducing their impact on the environment, sustainability measures also pose an important strategy for attracting new clients. Accordingly, to a sustainability trend in the travel market following are few stats to go through; Taking Personal Responsibility to Travel More Sustainably
Source – Booking.com
Furthermore, sustainability in the hotel sector is important to create a connection with the local population, while at the same time protecting the surrounding natural environment and biodiversity. Giving this local touch to a hotel experience helps distinguish a hotel from other hotels, providing high quality experiences and contributing to creating an individual identity for a hotel.
What are the most common sustainability practices for hotels?
There are so many opportunities to improve energy, water, and waste efficiency in hotels but making choices around these elements aren’t the only common practices. Other common practices for hotels include making operational changes by using utility benchmarking and temperature adjustments, as well as other technical updates like high-efficiency water fixtures or LED lighting.
The most common sustainability practices for hotels.
Operational Changes
Hotels using a property management system have implemented changes using the reporting tools available from popular PMSs to benchmark utility use and provide setpoints for temperature adjustments. When the temperature is controlled and managed by the hotel it’s a lot easier to manage usage. Other technical improvements that can be implemented on an operational level are the use of LED lighting, as well as implementing high-efficiency water fixtures to control the use of water.
Waste reduction
Hotels produce an excessive amount of waste. In fact, hotels across produce 289,700 metric tons of waste each year. Because of this, some of the most common sustainability measures are related to waste management.
Many hotels have implemented recycling in common areas, reusable food service materials and have made newspapers available in common areas rather than delivering to each individual room. Hotels have also implemented the use of reusable water bottles by having filtered water stations and giving guests a reusable water bottle instead of using plastic bottles.
Energy conservation
Energy conservation is one of the most important areas of sustainability because it has been found that reducing energy consumption can have the same effect on revenue management as increasing average daily room rate.
Some of the most common energy efficiency practices are energy tracking, having digital thermostats in the guest rooms, and the use of LED light bulbs. Another popular way of contributing to energy conservation is to install a one switch system for lights so that lights don’t get left on accidentally, as well as the installation of solar panels to power water heating.
EV vehicles - Another popular method is empowering guests to use sustainable means of transportation to get to the hotel by giving discounts or by having electric chargers for cars at the guests’ disposal.
Hotel chains are trying to make sustainable travel attractive by helping to widen the electric vehicle charging infrastructure and optimising charging costs for the travellers.
Water conservation
Water use for hotels is responsible for about 24 percent of total utility expenses. Bathroom fixtures, laundry, landscaping, and kitchens are the areas where the most water is used. Reducing water use not only helps reduce costs, but is also a fundamental sustainable practice.
The most common water conservation practices that hotels have implemented are regular water tracking and low-flow toilets, as well as putting in efficient faucets and showerheads. It is important to note that high-efficiency bathroom
fixtures use at least 20 percent less water, representing an important method of saving for hotels.
Another common practice is encouraging travellers to take sustainability into their own hands through both energy and water conservation. For example, hotels can have guests forgo daily towel and bed linen changes, which helps to reduce the energy and water necessary for laundry.
Amenities and cleaning products
Choosing amenities and cleaning products that are more friendly to the environment is important to reduce a hotel’s impact. Hotels have chosen to put soap and shampoo dispensers that are refillable instead of miniature amenities, which create excessive waste. While this method is more popular among mid-range hotels, high-range hotels have experimented with creating custom-formulated amenities in recyclable or compostable packages.
In terms of cleaning products, many hotels are choosing to shift away from abrasive cleaning products, towards organic or natural cleaners that are less harmful to both housekeeping and to the environment. This also helps move away from the use of products derived from petrochemicals hence promote “GREEN HOUSEKEEPING”.
Food & Beverage
F&B segment are taking sustainable initiatives to their restaurants, choosing to promote the use of local, organic food in their breakfast and meal choices. As well as promoting the careful and curated choice of ingredients at the restaurant. There is without a doubt a shift towards sustainably-sourced ingredients that also help contribute to the local economy of where the hotel is located. Local produce from the farms helps a big way in this initiative.
Conclusion
Sustainability should be treated with a holistic approach across all sectors – from housekeeping to operations in hospitality. Guests should also be encouraged to be involved in the process so that they can take an active role and be encouraged to make sustainable choices within the hotel and within the local environment, choosing local tour operators, and investing in locally produced goods.
There are more than 10 common sustainability practices in hotels which can be implemented hotel-wide and help contribute to reducing the carbon emissions from the hospitality sector. Understanding and embracing these initiatives will not only help hotels save money by being more energy-efficient and create less
waste, but also help differentiate your hotel from the competition. As we move towards more conscious consumers, hotels must be able to adapt to this type of consumer, offering them the chance to travel more sustainably.
