Getting travelers to behave more sustainably shouldn’t be easy. But one expert has found the most effective method.
How repeatedly have you ever entered a hotel room and located an indication that claims: “Every towel wash uses 15 liters of water. Please remember to reuse your towel to protect the environment.”
You might think that this gentle reminder would encourage guests to be more environmentally conscious. But Professor Sara Dolnicar from the University of Queensland, a social scientist dedicated to researching sustainable behavior, has found the other: “These signs simply don’t work.”
She says that holidaymakers have given themselves a “license to sin.”
“They worked hard all year, sorting their garbage into the right bins every day and remembering to turn off the lights every time they left the house,” she tells me in a video call.
When they go on holiday, they feel like they deserve somewhat break. For a short while, they put their very own comfort and pleasure above sustainability.
Over the past decade, Professor Dolnicar has researched and field-tested methods to encourage consumers – especially tourists – to adopt more sustainable behaviour.
While it is comparatively easy to get people to save lots of energy at home (because it directly impacts the energy bill), it presents a really different challenge in a hotel environment where there is no such thing as a financial incentive for guests.
“If I can crack tourism, I can crack anything,” she says. “Especially luxury tourism, given the high expectations and attitudes of this market segment.”
The first method: The power of peer pressure
One promising approach is to use social norms – the perceived and mostly unwritten rules of behavior inside a gaggle – through peer pressure.
Especially in the case of food: Studies have shown that social influences on eating are strong and pervasive. Our food intake is different after we are with others in comparison with after we eat alone.
“That’s why people tend to overfill their plates at the buffet. They think others are watching them and judge them when they go back several times to get more food,” says Dolnicar.
An experiment The study, conducted by researchers, placed a chic sign on each restaurant table with the message: “Welcome back! Again! And again! Visit our buffet many times. That’s better than taking a lot once.” The subtle change in social expectations eliminated what was previously considered embarrassing (coming back multiple times) and resulted in a 21% reduction in food waste. Without mentioning any environmental profit or food waste – just an easy correction of social norms.
Second method: Influence the behavior of guests
Another very effective technique to influence our behavior is nudging, an idea developed by Behavioral economists and is now adopted by governments all over the world.
Nudging involves subtle changes in the best way decisions are presented, for instance by making sustainable options the default selection.
In one study, the straightforward act of reducing the dimensions of plates at a buffet by three centimeters (just over an inch) resulted in a discount of 20 % on food waste. “It’s a change in infrastructure. You don’t even have to tell the guests anything,” says Dolnicar.
Nudging can even significantly reduce the frequency of room cleansing. In a city center hotel that hosts mostly business travelers, Dolnicar’s team modified the default setting from every day cleansing to no cleansing unless requested otherwise.
This change resulted in a remarkable reduction of 63% in room cleansing, which advantages each the environment and the hotel’s operating costs. Since this service represents a major a part of a hotel’s expenses, reducing it results in significant financial savings.
The method with the best effect: enjoyment
However, Dolnicar’s preferred approach – and the one she believes is essentially the most promising – is to mix sustainable behavior with enjoyment: “Tourism is all about enjoyment, so why not integrate fun, eco-friendly activities into the vacation experience?”
Her team introduced an easy stamp-collecting game to a European family hotel. Families received a stamp for every meal they ate and were rewarded with a prize after they checked out.
The result was a 38% less food waste“The kids went crazy for it,” she says, stressing that the main target was on increasing fun slightly than environmental advantages.
Dolnicar also has ideas on how the indulgence method may very well be applied to buffets in luxury hotels. “One simple option would be to have small markers indicating the healthiest food options.” Such guidance, she says, would make sure that consumers are less more likely to overfill their plates.
Room cleansing can also be an area where the indulgence method can get monetary savings and encourage environmentally friendly behavior, especially in luxury hotels. Since wealthy guests put “ultra-privacy” high on their priority list, Internova travel group found that they’re more open to initiatives comparable to changing the usual cleansing of rooms.
In a field trial Dolnicar and her team have put up signs within the hotel rooms that read, “We value and respect your privacy. That’s why we will not clean your room daily, but we will be happy to do so at your request.” It’s a subtle communication of hedonistic advantages: guests are given freedom of selection, flexibility and well-deserved privacy.
Recommendations for implementation of the methods
Despite the clear advantages, Dolnicar says many hotels struggle to implement these strategies effectively. “Hotels often have very stupid ideas,” she says. “I’ve seen hotels put up table signs in 10-point font and write half an essay on them. No one is going to read that.”
Without knowledge of behavioral science, she believes they might miss vital details or introduce elements that backfire, which is why she stresses the importance of using proven solutions or consulting experts.
“There are so many good solutions that have already been tested,” she says. The secret is to grasp the mindset of guests and find measures that align with their values and desires.
Whether hotels use peer pressure, nudges or enhancement of fun, the solution to achieve eco-friendly tourism is to make it easy, enjoyable and – most significantly – make it feel natural.
