Standing out in a busy marketplace isn’t just about having the most luxurious amenities or the best location. It’s about connecting with your guests on a deeper level. Whether you’re managing a boutique hotel, overseeing a holiday park, or running a cosy self-catering cottage, understanding and leveraging your purpose can elevate your marketing from mere advertising to meaning connections with your guests.
People’s mindsets are changing. People no longer are coerced into buying things, just because. People are making more conscious decisions about what they purchase, and who they purchase from.
The good news is hospitality business are well positioned to provide experiences over things. We’ve all got too many things. More than ever future guests have a purpose led approach, they are wanting to do the right thing and spend their money and time with businesses who are aligned to their values such as providing sustainable travel and reducing their environmental impact.
Guests are looking for hospitality businesses to lead the way, to provide solutions. Everyone in the room can feel overwhelmed with the pace of change and the things to focus on. But the reward is making the change and making your business more appealing for tomorrow's travellers. You can be part of the solution, do good for people, do good for the planet and do good for your business.
It’s easy to get caught in the motions, especially in hospitality. The hustle and bustle of daily operations. The continuous momentum to keep the wheel turning. All of this can make the ‘what’ and ‘how’ of your business the primary focus. But have you ever taken a step back to consider ‘why’ you do what you do?
Understanding your ‘why’ – your core purpose, cause, or belief – is crucial for any business. Your ‘why’ is what sets you apart in a sea of options. It could be the reason why guests choose your property over another, why they remember their stay, and why they come back.
But ‘why’ you do what you do isn’t just beneficial for your guests and business proposition. It’s good for you as an individual too. To find value, meaning and fulfilment in what you do. The average person in the UK will spend 20-30% of their lifetime working! Do you really want to be using all this time doing something you don’t even like? Finding purpose, finding your ‘why’, can transform your whole perspective and lease you a new passion for the work you do. It’ll give you an internal richness to your working life, but also, it’s good for business too.
You may have seen a certain high street supermarket recently promoted a range of food and drink products that were B Corp certified.
B Corp is a rigorous certification from B Labs that requires businesses to demonstrate a high standard of social and environmental performance, transparency and accountability.
Becoming more sustainable makes business sense. It’s backed by various research that demonstrates people want to buy from more ethically responsible businesses.
A survey from Neilsen found that 73% of Millennials are willing to pay more for sustainable products, while 81% expect companies to take environmental action.
And more than half of UK adults (58%) use business certifications to make decisions about businesses to buy from and work for, according to a recent B Labs survey.
There are more and more green and sustainable certification schemes in the hotel space now (check out our blog on sustainable hotel awards), but why do they matter?
When we make purchasing decisions, we use both the rational and emotional part of our brains. A green or sustainable certification allows our rational mind to tick off that requirement, like whether our room has tea and coffee facilities. We go through our own mental checklist before we buy.
But the emotional part of our brain asks us whether the purchase feels right? Does the hotel brand connect with us emotionally and this may be a feeling of whether it shares our values. For those who will pay more to buy sustainable products, then a green certification or sustainable approach to tourism will connect more emotionally and deeply.
At Clockwork Marketing, we know that for the most part, people searching Google to book a hotel, is the biggest driver of online bookings.
We also know that Google now allows hotels to add their green certification to their Google Business Profile. But according to a recent survey we conducted in partnership with the AA, 73% of UK hospitality businesses don’t have a sustainability accreditation, offering those that have, a point of difference and competitive advantage.
Becoming a more sustainable hotel makes business sense in terms of gaining more bookings and reducing your carbon footprint lowers energy costs. But ethically and rationally, it’s the right thing to do.
If we don’t have a more responsible approach to our environment and local community, then they won’t be available to accommodate visitors. Just look at overcrowding on the Poldark beaches in Cornwall or tourist protests in Barcelona.
Go green for business growth but also for the future of travel.