This is a guest post by Svetlana Udalov, Founder & CEO of HKeeper, a universal cloud-based platform helping you decrease operational costs and increase service quality.
Become sustainable – support nature, attract today’s and tomorrow’s hotel guests
Earth Day is one of the largest secular holidays globally, celebrating more than a billion people every year to change human behavior and politics at the global, national, and local levels.
Since the inception of the modern environmental movement, April 22, 1970, the social and cultural environment has been growing.
Speaking of the Hospitality industry, a large-scale survey conducted last year by Booking.com (2020) revealed nine trends for the future of travel, one of which was “The Rise of Responsible Travel.”
According to the same report
- 45% of travelers make greener choices in their daily lives.
- 53% of travelers said that they are more determined to make environmentally friendly choices when looking to travel again in the future.
- 69% of Global travelers identified sustainable travel as important to them.
Efficiency is sustainability
Sustainability seems to be more than a buzzword and hotels are changing from nice-to-have to a must-have priority for a growing number of environmentally and socially conscious travelers. And they are becoming more efficient because of it.
Dr. Legrand, the guest editor-in-chief of the Hotel Yearbook 2018 – Sustainable Hospitality and the Hotel Yearbook Special Edition – Sustainable Hospitality 2020, pointed out several key eco-friendly hotel industry trends, and one of them is creating a Paperless Hotel.
The HKeeper company sees the aspect of being a Paperless Hotel from the perspective of operational management of hotels by shifting from a manual to a digital workflow and limiting the use of paper, which helps to reduce carbon emissions.
Today, we know that most of the tasks in hotels are given either verbally, through different types of phone communication, or assigned in writing, otherwise known as pen & paper, which is extremely costly for the environment and hotels.
15 of New York City’s Сentral Parks need to be cut down so that US hotels have enough paper to assign tasks for one year! Every 40 unused reams of paper save 1.5 acres of pine forest, which absorbs carbon.
Do you know how much a US company spends on average on annual printing? According to research by Pricewaterhouse Coopers, the average employee:
- Costs a company up to $ 1,200 a year in printing.
- Makes 10,000 copies each year, 17% of which are wasted.
When technology didn’t exist, the pen & paper management method could be accepted, but not anymore. With modern technology, hotels have become more eco-friendly and increase guest satisfaction. Technology also brings significantly less errors, task losses, and helps drive up business efficiency by reducing the operational cost.
A final thought about becoming a paperless operation
Hospitality, food, and beverage companies that often focus their public messages on topics that promote their accomplishments in saving water, energy, or reducing the use of natural resources are often rewarded with brand popularity and, as a result, increased sales.
Apply a digital solution to your operation and shout out that your business operation runs paperless. Tell them that none of your employees are receiving tasks on paper, and share that online check-in and checkout are part of your green initiative. Place information on your website and share how many trees are saved, the amount of ink not being used, and how much your water and electricity bills are decreased.
By creating a digital ecosystem of your business, you optimize management, save your business, and preserve the ecosystem of the next generation – go for it, this is priceless!
Looking for more ways to make your property management business sustainable? Check out our blog post on 8 Ways to Go Green With Your Vacation Rentals.
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