Having been a journalist for 25 years and specialised in hotel business, Maria Pütz-Willems travelled the world for 16 years as a freelance journalist for leading hotel and tourism publications. Always with a certain feeling for trends and ideas and staying in permanent contact with international dialogue partners. In 2005, she launched the online magazine www.hospitaliyInside.com, a bilingual network for international hotel business.
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Environmental initiatives and blatant marketing: The thing with climate protection...
We all would love a perfect climate, but who can say that he or she is actually doing something to obtain this goal? To start with, we mostly look at all the branches whose activity evidently has a great influence on the world’s climate. For this reason, the tourism branch, and within this field mainly the airline companies and hotels, has become a target for those protecting the climate. All those who transport or quarter masses are simply not capable of obtaining positive results in the „green field“…
Already more than 20 years ago, I wrote an article about waste separation in German hotels, photographing fish oil containers, garbage cans and glass collection tons in order to document that German hotels do not only talk about the environment but are also active to protect it. The “towel initiative” emanating from Europe has caused a stir worldwide over the last decade, motivating more and more people to economize dirty laundry volumes, and today we have even reached a level where houses in rainy Central Europe are equipped with solar cells on the roofs and organic heating stations are constructed together with many newly built hotels. So why does the whole world talk about it? Because the Americans, the world’s cliché environmental bad guys, have started talking about it! They are the masters of marketing. This is also a reason why one should have a closer look at what they actually do for the matter.
I order not to cause misunderstandings: every initiative in the field of environment and climate is great! Nevertheless, one has to be wary of drifting off onto the level of blatant marketing: In the Swiss town of Arosa, one can spend climate neutral vacation, and in the Radisson Hotels, one can pass a climate neutral night. So-called “carbon companies” calculate how much mountain air or ressources a guest takes up during his stay. Today, even conferences are pronounced “climate neutral”… Marketing takes over environmental protection.
The best for hotels is to be honest with their guests, telling them all they can do in order to secure a better climate and a healthier environment. Many of them have been doing that for a long time without shouting it from the rooftops. Don’t hesitate to ask this sort of questions during your next trip!
Maria Pütz-Willems
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