We have all heard about the property bubble and the equity bubble that was spawned by the financial bubble. Now there is a new one on the horizon – the green and alternative energy bubble.
The ingredients are all there, the legislation is in place, US President Obama is making the environment the cornerstones of his economic recovery plan. The New Zealand government is very sensitive to the greenalisation of the voting public. Suddenly green is the new black. The growing green trend has the populus ignoring economics in the name of social responsibility.
Now what has all this got to do with a NZ tour blog? I have increasingly noticed that the greening of the travelling public is being targeted by many in the tourist industry.
Accommodation providers have for years added their little card in the bathrooms asking guests to think of the environmental impact of having your towels washed. Are they really interested in the environment or is the motivation to save laundry costs.
Last year New Zealand’s official quality rating agency, Qualmark, added environmental performance into their assessment criteria for accommodation providers and visitor activities. This environmental assessment model will be reviewed this year. Chances are the weighting of the environmental component of the assessment will be increased.
This government agency has also released a “Qualmark Green” assessment. You can now search visitor activities or accommodation by their environmental rating.
It clearly is a clever marketing ploy to appeal to the increasing green sensitivity of the travelling public. And its paying off. In November, New Zealand won the ‘Overall Winner’ and ‘Best Destination’ categories in the Virgin Holidays Responsible Tourism Awards…. the what’s it called awards.
Recently when searching for 5 star accommodation on the West Coast of New Zealand which is a oxymoron, I did stumble on a new Franz Josef hotel called the Te Waonui Forest Retreat.
Their website was littered with eco babble bubble like “Throughout the hotel you will find eco-friendly features” and my favourite “Great care has been taken to not only respect and preserve the environment around the hotel, but to celebrate and embrace the rainforest within the hotel’s design” The reality of this last statement should read “we had to convince the local government planners to give permission for a commercial development to proceed in a rain forest”.
The accommodation does however look promising and I will report back after our stay later this year.
With all this green pressure mounting and feeling a little guilty emptying the petrol pumps of small country stations as I tour New Zealand in my six litre gas guzzling Hummer, I thought I too should do my bit for this inevitable green bubble.
Hey, love the Hummer!
The Qualmark Enviro-Green accreditation was a compulsive feel-good initiative forced upon the tourism industry at the height of the Nanny knows best culture of the Clark government.
What Qualmark are doing is forcing the environmental and social mantra of “Responsible Tourism” upon the accommodation industry by making it a compulsive section in their quality assessment. This criteria was not requested and did not have any input from their biggest sector client, the motel industry.
Although the Responsible Tourism criteria only forms 5% of the overall quality assessment, there is a real risk that this is the thin edge of the wedge. There is no doubt that this has been introduced with the intention of increasing its influence over time. A bit like boiling a frog.
Qualmark has become bored with merely measuring quality and is now promoting environmental and social evangelism. Its assessors have now become environmental zealots and most of Qualmark collateral now seems to focus on environmentalism. They repeat the claim time after time that environmental credentials are being increasingly demanded from guests. We have yet to see quantifiable evidence of this and our coal-face analysis dictates that this is far from reality.
Qualmark seem to have gone from assessing what they see to now telling businesses what they should see. Qualmark’s purpose appears to be compelling businesses to go down the environmental and corporate responsibility pathway because it is “good” for business.
The unintended consequences of this agenda by Qualmark is the production of a whole lot of silly green wash being forced on operators that only wish to achieve another tick by Qualmark. The consumer is increasingly savvy and is extremely perceptive. They quickly determine that the product is not “real” and the cynicism will not stop at the remark about how the “towel policy is only being used to save the hotel money.”
The tourism industry is fuelled on carbon and the irony of an isolated country grandstanding its alleged green credentials in this way by unnecessarily raising environmental hysteria and guilt of travel is laughable.
The last thing that tourism needs to focus on right now is a silly green-wash campaign that opens the country to unnecessary scrutiny from flat-earth environmentalists.
In this dire economic climate, the industry needs to man-up, axe unnecessary “hug-a-polar-bear” programs, focus on self funded innovative sexy marketing and revert back to core single bottom line business activities.
We believe that guests want a unique experience, value and QUALITY. Trendy environmentalism and corporate responsible socio-babble is OK if this is conducted by the business owners’ choice – but not by compulsion.
Qualmark should stick to its knitting and pursue the virtues of benchmarking QUALITY.
Eco friendly tourism, which is on rise, brings a lot of advantages like conservation of eco system, rare animals & conservation of beauty of exotic locations like Arunachal Pradesh, India. Just right beliefs & supportive yet small actions can bring that change around for our planet.