It’s not only green washing that is holding back progress on responsible tourism but “green hushing” – when companies making good progress are scared to shout about less than perfect sustainability credentials for fear of a backlash – the so-called “tall poppy syndrome.”
At the same time, sustainability messages are most valuable at the point of sale said Tim Williamson, director of Responsible Travel, during a panel discussion at the recent WTM London travel trade fair. He explained that although all of the company’s 6,000 or so holidays have good sustainability credentials this is not what brings most customers to its website.
“Looking at our search terms, they’re looking for experiences, they’re looking for amazing times. When (the sustainability message) kicks in is the conversions when it comes to actual bookings.”
Encouraging others to integrate sustainability across their companies he said: “We could have easily gone on the campaigning route, but we chose to go down a route that shows you can easily make money from responsible travel.”
Williamson added: “Start to be honest about what you’re doing and please avoid all claims around carbon neutrality and carbon positivity, they will be seen through.”
Meanwhile, some businesses suffer from keeping a low sustainability profile, said Xavier Font, professor of sustainability marketing at the University of Surrey, UK.
“Smaller businesses tend to be green hushing, bigger businesses tend to greenwash.”
He explained that staff members working on sustainability often say: “We can’t tell the marketing department because they’ll get carried away.” But he added it was better to communicate progress with honesty and help consumers make positive choices than to not talk about it at all.
TUI’s sustainable business manager Ian Corbett admitted: “We shied away from talking about things we’ve done in sustainability because we own an airline. Now we’re addressing (the carbon impact of that) and saying, ‘This is what we’re doing about it.’”
The tour operator is working on consistent labels for accredited sustainability elements across its holidays and using more ‘realistic rather than idealistic’ imagery in its marketing to show interaction between tourists and local communities.
Corbett said large companies like TUI had to be prepared to accept some criticism by being public with their sustainability journey “if we want responsible travel to be the choice of the many rather than the aspiration of the few.”
Wolfgang Georg Arlt, professor and CEO of the China Outbound Tourism Research Institute (COTRI) said the problem also lay within companies. “It’s not only the external marketing but the internal marketing. People don’t really understand what this is all about… (Sustainability is) being discussed at management level but it’s not really trickling down to those talking to customers.”