WTTC Launches Hotel Sustainability Basics

The World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) has launched the Hotel Sustainability Basics (Basics), enabling tourist accommodation providers from around the world, regardless of their size, to begin their sustainability journey.

Basics, an industry-backed scheme, is a globally recognized set of criteria that all hotels should implement as a minimum to drive responsible and sustainable travel and tourism.

Basics emerged as a result of a clear demand from a group of influential global hotel brands and whilst there a great number of sustainability initiatives, Basics focuses on an achievable starting point.

It will encourage all accommodation providers to begin their sustainability journeys and meet the fundamental standards required of our sector.

Made up of 12 key criteria, the Basics is accessible to all hotels to implement. It serves as a stepping-stone to more complex sustainability schemes and achieve greater sustainability across the industry.

Basics has also been recognized by the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance as the starting point for a net positive industry, who announced the latest version of the Pathway to Net Positive Hospitality.

In order to ensure the validity of the program, WTTC partnered with Green Key and SGS to develop a simple online verification system to allow hotels to provide evidence and ensure they are following the Basics.

The verification scheme enables hotels and other tourist accommodation to be officially verified for meeting eight of the 12 criteria in the first year and demonstrate their commitment to working toward all 12 of the criteria by year three.

Together, the criteria ensure the sector is eco resilient and adaptive to the changing needs of the planet.

Six major international hotel groups, collectively representing tens of thousands of sites from around the world have now joined Basics as inaugural partners. The first hotel groups include well-known brands such as Accor, Jin Jiang International, Louvre Hotels Group, Meliá Hotels International, Meininger, and Radisson Hotel Group.

Julia Simpson, WTTC President & CEO, said: “We are incredibly proud to launch our Hotel Sustainability Basics and its verification scheme. The initiative is a response to the sector’s need for a baseline for hotels and other tourist lodgings to introduce the exacting sustainability standards.”

Simpson continued: “Our research shows that most business owners are aware of their responsibility to the environment but need a step-by-step guide that is scientifically verifiable.”

WTTC’s boss said: “It is testament to the need for such a scheme that already thousands of hotel properties from around the world have committed to implement Basics, and from today can begin the verification process.”

WTTC carried out an extensive international benchmarking exercise through the Green Lodgings Trends Report, learning from 27,000 accommodation providers on how they are currently fairing against the 12 criteria.

Crucially, this benchmark will allow WTTC to track the progress of Basics over time.

Almost 100% of accommodation providers implement at least one initiative to reduce inequality and 96% have adopted linen reuse programs.

The report also showed many hoteliers are establishing sustainable practices but there is still a way to go for these to become common across the sector.

Two-thirds of those surveyed have already begun to eliminate the use of certain single-use plastics such as straws and implementing other waste reduction initiatives.

Emerging practices were also highlighted in the report.

Almost half of respondents have replaced small plastic toiletry bottles with bulk dispensers and a third now provide vegetarian options for every course in their food and beverage provision.

Sector Partners

In addition to the Alliance, WTTC collaborated with other key leading sector figures including representatives from Greenview, WTTC’s hotel members, Expedia, the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), Sustainable Hospitality Alliance and Trip.com Group, as well as the certification bodies SGS and Green Key.

Go to www.wttc.org for more.