Sustainability systems are being challenged by organizational habit and perceptions rather than analytical decision making, with respect to the relationship between health and safety, quality and sustainability. Environmental indicators are identified as the most conflictive; the key findings demonstrate that most challenges require a change in human behavior rather than a technical solution. 

The data suggests that tour operators need to develop sustainability auditing tools that consider the impacts upon health, safety and quality within the accommodation.  The Travelife sustainability auditing system provides a useful case study to demonstrate the necessary requirement for a complementary approach when conducting accommodation audits.

The article has just been published as: Baddeley, J. & Font, X.  (2011) Barriers to Tour Operator Sustainable Supply Chain Management, Tourism and Recreation Research, 36 (3) 205-214.

DOWNLOAD PRE-PUBLICATION VERSION

GO TO THE PUBLISHER’S OFFICIAL VERSION

We found that corporate systems are not reflected on operations, environmental performance is eco-savings driven, labour policies aim to comply with local legislation, socio-economic policies are inward looking with little acceptance of impacts on the destination, and customer engagement is limited. Generally larger hotel groups have more comprehensive policies but also greater gaps in implementation, while the smaller hotel groups focus only on environmental management and deliver what they promised.

Why was Accor top and Hilton so low down, and what are the consequences of tour operator suppliers (Riu, Barceló, Iberostar) being at the bottom?  DOWNLOAD THE REPORT HERE

The green lifestyle group of businesses is dominant- for most businesses, sustainability actions are taken for altruistic reasons as part of lifestyle choices. The green entrepreneur group is smaller, with less than 20% of businesses having a profile of reasons and actions that suggest sustainability is seen as a business asset or a vehicle for competitive advantage.

We find primarily small and vulnerable businesses in European protected areas, that  claim to be sustainable in general terms but find it harder to show concrete examples. Larger businesses report more sustainability practices, and regardless of size, sustainability and financial health are related. However the lifestyle approach to sustainability means there is limited use for commercial advantages, as shown in the limited use for marketing and communications.

The implications for protected area managers are:

1. Promoting the business case of sustainability to businesses is not likely to work as much as focusing on the altruistic reasons.
2. If many of the businesses undertaking sustainability actions do it for lifestyle reasons, it will be difficult to promote any change of behaviour specially more formalised sustainability management (even if it increases profits).
3. Savings from energy, water and waste management should be promoted first, to help these businesses make savings. Help them identify the savings to then use these as a budget for other sustainability actions that will inevitably increase costs.
4. All businesses need help to understand which sustainability actions can be presented as part of quality, and to learn how and when to communicate these.

This study, the most comprehensive of its kind ever undertaken, intends to bring new insights into how the meeting and event industry can build a sustainable future through best practices. As part of this study, we will be surveying 37,000 meetings, conference and congress organisers, promoters, buyers and clients- the largest CSR survey of its kind.  The overall goal is to produce a detailed report against three core areas defined as external environment, industry engagement and consumer demand.

For a long time I have been saying that we place to much emphasis on leisure tourism, and we ought to focus on business travel- the conference, conventions, meetings and more broadly events industry are well placed to test whether sustainability certification and requirements for corporate disclosure on CSR are now a well established requirement to trade, and how this trend is evolving globally- studying all of MPI’s membership base, over three years, provides a wealth of data never compiled under one study before.

MPI intends to release results in three phases at major global industry events in the United States, Asia and across Europe mid-2012 through 2013. The launch of this research initiative is just one element of a major focus on CSR by MPI, made possible thanks to a US$500,000 investment in the MPI Foundation from InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG). More information about MPI’s comprehensive efforts in sustainability and social responsibility can be found through the CSR portal at mpiweb.org.

For Leeds Metropolitan University, this is an excellent opportunity for three departments to work together: 8 staff from the UK Centre for Events Management, International Centre for Responsible Tourism and the Centre for Hospitality will work on this project. This project aims to produce results for our Research Excellence Framework submission as it requires both academic publications and industry impact- the aim is to support MPI in developing its CSR policies and influence evidence based industry change.

• Businesses that take sustainability actions for eco-savings reasons perform best financially,
• Businesses that take sustainability actions for moral reasons are happy with their financial performance, but don’t perform as well as the first group, and
• Businesses that take the least sustainability actions also have the lowest financial results.

The data was collected from 400 accommodation suppliers in Catalonia, Spain. We are now testing with 900 businesses in Europarc destinations across Europe, and I will share the results from this research in the near future.

I’ve been working with Fáilte Ireland now for nine months to prepare their Green Marketing toolkit, which I am proud to see come out today.  The main text already existed for the VisitEngland original document (who has licensed Fáilte Ireland  and VisitWales to have their own versions created).  The Wales version willl come out shortly.

The main effort in Ireland has been identifying case studies. You might think this would be an easy task. Oh, no. Companies in England were shy to talk about their sustainability credentials, and in most cases we found poor examples of management speak in their websites. But finding companies in Ireland was much harder. For a start, our remit was to work with primarily environmentally certified firms- Green Tourism Business Scheme, Green Hospitality Awards, EU Flower, Greenbox primarily. What we found is that most certification programmes pretty much ignore the green communication requirements, focusing almost exclusively on ecosavings management. These should be the firms that can confidently communicate their credentials, but weren’t.

The work for Fáilte Ireland has included face to face group training, writing over 50 individual reviews of accommodation businesses websites on their sustainability communications, and the interviews with businesses that led to this last report. To select the 30 case studies in this document, more than 60 interviews took place, trying to find an angle on how those businesses did something relatively easy for others to learn from and copy, with a small budget.

View the interactive pdf online or Download the pdf.

I am now now completing the VisitWales version of this same document, these two new versions (Ireland and Wales) are licensed by VisitEngland.

I have been analysing the data from 10 international leisure hotel chains further- our research was conducted for 9 national consumer associations and published in March 2011, and presented at ITB Berlin. With my academic hat on, I am now delving more deeply into the data. There’s some really interesting lessons to be learned, which I shall present to ICRT alumni in London on Wed 13th July (alumni know where and when we meet monthly). Here’s a sneak preview:

This table tells you about the quality of these hotels’ CSR reports- 39 indicators provided evidence for 13 criteria in six different themes. The large international chains have more comprehensive policies.

This second table tell us the percentage of points that hotel groups lost when we visited their actual hotels, in Thailand, Mexico and the Med, to check if policies were implemented. Two of the hotel groups with the initial best policies had the greatest policy-performance gap, and those that lost least points were the groups that had low initial scores. RIU lost most points because they denied access to all their hotels. Accor however had a high policy-performance consistency. 

This explains our final table, the basis of the publications in the consumer association magazines: Seen as a greenwashing question, Marriott and Intercontinental would have a problem- they could be criticised for not doing what their policies say. But even when that’s taken into account, their overall performance was much higher than that of say Barcelo and Iberostar, who promised little and consistently delivered accordingly. CSR is a moving target, not only in time but across geographies and management styles.

My question to you is then: is it better to be ambitious in your CSR policy, and accept a partial implementation, or should we be conservative?

http://www.greenlodgingnews.com/wyndham-virginia-offers-go-green-get-green-package

Marketers run the tourism industry. It is not the product that rules, but the brand. The marketer in other sectors has been very clever in providing “added value” in the product through its packaging that appeals to the consumer’s inner needs and demands, differentiating that product and communicating it in the most subliminal ways. The aim has been to “satisfy consumer needs”, they say.

The problem is that whether we think marketers are nice people or not, we still have to work with them. Change from within is the only answer, I would suggest. So get in the shoes of a marketer to see how they would instinctively use ethical consumer values. I have listed them here following the layout of Kotler and Lee’s book Corporate Social Responsibility. These include:

1. Cause promotions
2. Cause related marketing
3. Social marketing
4. Corporate philanthropy
5. Community volunteering
6. Socially responsible business practices

1. Cause Promotions

The company provides funds, in-kind contributions, or other organization resources to increase awareness and concern about a social cause. Contributions are not tied to company sales, and most of the effort is communicating the social message, not in changing business practices of the firm. It involves more than charitable donations from the company as some staff time is required to plan how the cause promotion will be run.

The purpose of the cause promotion is to raise awareness, not to change behaviour of the consumer. Providing retail and online store space are typical cause promotion activities. Most cause promotions are run by NGOs and the private firm provides some in kind assistance, usually in consumer outreach. Benefits are mainly on brand positioning- selecting the cause is important in this respect, it needs to reinforce the good behaviour of the company and it is best if it the problem cannot be directly attributed to the company or similar companies, as it can be counterproductive. Examples of activities include:

•  Building awareness of a cause or problem, such as the poor animal, natural or human conditions in a holiday destination.
• Persuading people to learn more about the cause, such as coral damage or the loss of natural habitats for wild animals.
• Persuading people to donate time, money, or non monetary resources.
• Persuading people to participate in events, such as take an excursion to the charity being promoted.

2. Cause related marketing

The company commits to making a contribution or donating a percentage of revenues to a specific cause based on product sales e.g. donate 5% of the price of each product sold. This is usually for a pre-specified period (often low season) and for a specific charity.  There is a mutually beneficial financial arrangement, and the company will expect a collaboration from the charity to drive business through to them in return for the funds raised, as well as the image benefits through brand association, which can lead to empathy image, brand recall and top of mind awareness.

Because of the higher stakes, there is usually a more formal contractual agreement between the two parties.  This is more easily done in fast consumer moving goods, where profit margins are higher as the cost of production is very small compared to the typical retail price. 

In tourism, cause related marketing might be used to boost shoulder and low season sales as a contribution to fixed costs (see pricing section in unit 5). You can otherwise make donations on the purchase of add-on products that would complement a main sale, as a way of incentivising additional buy (i.e. percentage of sales on green/ethical travel insurance or greener car hire, which customers might not otherwise buy from you). The donation can be linked to a percentage of the product sold, or a fixed amount per booking, or matching consumer donations.

Promotion of carbon offsetting in particular would fit this category, when firms do it for the consumer, match contributions or provide add on benefits to anyone that offsets. Cause related marketing works best when the cause you support is unique and cannot be easily copied by competitors, when this partnership has been long term and not just last minute, and when the cause is of direct interest to your target market. Koter and Lee give examples in their book from McDonald’s, NorthWestern Airlines and American Express; examples which are all of relevance to our sector.

3. Social Marketing

Social marketing supports the development and/or implementation of a behaviour change campaign. These will typically include aspects of how to behave during your holiday at the destination, what to wear, what are the traditions of the place, how to speak with locals, what souvenirs to buy (e.g. avoid endangered species or historical artefacts), and not to touch corals or feed animals to mention some typical aspects. Aside from this, tour operators promoting travelling by public transport to the airport would also fall in this category.

The company needs to provide a positive solution to the alternative behaviour, and it is important to introduce these campaigns in a tactful way that do not give the impression to customers that hadnever thought about commiting some of those “offences” that this is the kind of tourists that goes with that company or establishment.

I have seen signs in hotels from Copacabana to Siem Reap about not being allowed to have “guests” in the rooms are quite shocking to some of the customers when they realise this is to prevent sexual exploitation – “Could this be happening just in the next room along? Maybe even in this very bed just some days ago!”.

4. Corporate Philanthropy

The company makes a direct contribution to a charity or cause, most often in the form of cash grant, donations, and/or in-kind service. Philanthropy or charitable donations should be used when the contractual powers of the company do not allow to change some of the unsustainability of the destination or environments that the company operates in, especially if these can be attributed as externalities of the company, i.e. if the operating of the company has in any way contributed to aggravating them.

There are hundreds ofindividual and association level examples of charitable donations, and these can clearly have brand, image and press coverage benefits. I will not go into these in more detail because I personally find focusing on them alone is not a good precedent for responsible tourism marketing- we need to go deeper. Clearly collecting the spare change on a flight back is a worthy activity, and will contribute in some small way, but I am not prepared to call that company responsible just for doing that.

5. Community Volunteering

We all understand volunteering now, it is sufficiently common: a company supports and encourages employees, retail partners, and/or franchise members to volunteer their time to support local community organization and causes. We have fewer cases than charitable donations, some of these are long term partnerships and others are punctual, some are annual events while others are year long activities. They do contribute to company togetherness and feel good, while they can be criticised for being shallow rewards for the chosen few- particularly if travel is involved- that put additional financial pressure on the company overall. Companies will need to be careful before deciding what level of effort they want to put into it, and for what purpose.

6. Socially responsible business practices

Interestingly, the last of the chapters in Kotler and Lee’s book speaks about adopting and conducting discretionary business practices and investments that support social causes to improve community wellbeing and protect the environment. As examples they give community trade and environmental friendly processes, and give examples of sourcing fair trade or organic coffee (e.g. Starbucks).

I say interestingly because you would be forgiven for thinking that changing business practices should come first, and that focusing on the other aspects is greenwashing. Yes, it is. But to the marketer, perception is reality unfortunately.  Every other module in our masters helps you think of ways in which the product can be genuinely made more responsible, authentic and ethical. I hope what you learn throughout this module is put to good use towards social marketing, not just traditional marketing.  Yes the company has to be market driven, but the responsible tourism company needs to put ethics beyond legislation compliance first. Do it for real, then market it. No gimmicks.

This report reviews the marketing and communications basics and evaluates how the objectives of sustainability can be aligned with the needs of marketers. The study was initiated to try to account for the discrepancy that exists between 30 years of promoting the sustainability message and the perceived lack of sustainable behaviour by consumers and corporate buyers. It is partly a review of past research and partly an expression of ideas concerning the role of marketers.

The study discusses the gap that exists between knowledge and behaviour and suggests research approaches that may be followed to improve marketer’s understanding. It also discusses the requirements for culture change which might improve receptivity and cognizance of information but which are largely absent. The study highlights some of the inadequacies of current research methods, while emphasising that research is required to monitor trends which may be taken account of by marketers.

The report reveals many inadequacies of current research and CSR reporting which might be expected to improve the marketing performance of companies:

• although concern for sustainability issues is high, the strength and depth of attitudes are low
• the necessary ingredients for cultural change are absent
• the level of debate about sustainability is uninformative and short-hand communications are ineffective
• CSR reporting is directed to the wrong audience
• CSR performance cannot become an intangible asset of businesses and affect shareholder value unless it first affects their business performance
• marketers need to take a holistic view of their organisation and the value of sustainable production to brand image

Read online from http://www.mpgintl.com/papers/MPG_Intl_Sustainable_Motivation_Report.pdf

In his most useful book The Green Marketing Manifesto, John Grant breaks down green marketing into three types (2007: 12):

1. A.   Green- setting new standards- communicate: having commercial objectives only (where the product, brand or company is greener than alternatives, but the marketing is straightforward about establishing this difference)
2. B.   Greener- sharing responsibility- collaborate: having green objectives as well as commercial objectives (the marketing itself achieves green objectives, for instance changing the way people use this product).
3. C.   Greenest- supporting innovation- cultural reshaping: having cultural objectives as well (making new ways of life and new business models normal and acceptable).

John Grant’s green marketing grid

(Source: Grant, 2007:14) 

Still, it is hard to understand why there is such variation in behaviours towards sustainability- can’t most companies benefit from it? And how do we explain the impact that different reasons for taking responsibility will have on the credibility of the firm?

Most of these benefits are only achieved through time and a change in company values; those that look for quick fixes because of pressure to be seen to be green chance being publicly criticised for greenwashing. There are also many companies working more responsibly but greenhushing, i.e. not publicly speaking about it because of fears of being criticised. 

The corporate principles behind why a firm behaves more or less responsibly will affect how they plan to use their actions for marketing. ICRT PhD graduate Mohammed El Dief has developed a framework that distinguishes three dimensions of organizational values: competitiveness (instrumental), legitimacy (relational) and altruism (ethical); and seeks to understand how such value dimensions can lead firms to adopt beyond environmental compliance practices.

Competitiveness, as it relates to the natural environment, explains how firms can search for cost efficiency or market opportunities and hence gaining competitive advantages over their competitors by applying proactive environmental strategies. Legitimacy-based values, however, relates environmental actions as a means to achieve cordial relations with external stakeholders by adhering to the broadly accepted values, norms and regulations. Finally, altruism stems from the argument that some firms search for lower environmental impacts because they see this as “the right thing to do”. Don’t dismiss it as theory, it’s important to understand these three points because they will affect all that happens afterwards, and you can use it to interpret their actions in your assignment. 

Much of his PhD looks at how personal and organisational ethical values influence the organisation’s green management, and green marketing. His research suggests that a firm’s choice of environmental strategies are a function of managerial interpretations of environmental issues either as opportunity or a threat, and points to internal and external factors that affect how this environment is perceived. There are studies documenting the impact that all of these internal factors have on responsible behaviour: CEO and top management support and involvement, shareholder pressure, employee contribution, availability of financial resources, size and visibility of firm, belonging to an international corporation or chain and attracting certain international markets, and quality of services.

External factors affect organizational behaviour in the extent that companies perceive them as an opportunity or threat. In terms of a threat, business responsiveness is the result of business desire to avoid negative consequences of non-compliance to external institutional pressures (most typically threat of regulation, but also de facto requirements to trade). Government regulation, trade association policies and standards,  public concern and market demand [these are different though], suppliers or contractors. The ability to integrate stakeholder concerns into their strategy has shown to be a key indicator of whether companies will be proactively responsible.

You can now read the two journal articles outlining this approach in

El Dief, M. & Font, X (2011)  Determinants of environmental management in the Red Sea Hotels: personal and organizational values and contextual variables, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, in publication

El Dief, M. & Font, X (2010) The determinants of hotels’ marketing managers’ green marketing behaviour, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 18 (2): 157-174

YOUR QUESTION: Do these reasons to be responsible make sense to you? Can you apply them to yourself, or to a company of your choice?