Chinese tourists top for green hotel commitment

Chinese tourism delegation outside Green Tourism Gold Blenheim Palace

Biggest market – biggest green potential – Ssurprise result from Earth Day online survey

Agoda.com, Priceline’s Asia booking site conducted a Global Earth Day Hotels Survey recently which had some not very surprising results – it showed that while most travelers like environmentally friendly hotels, they don’t want to pay much more to stay in them.

But, whereas travelers from Netherlands, Denmark and the UK care the least about eco-friendly hotels – an astonishing 79% of Chinese tourists said that they would prefer eco-friendly hotels and 35% even said that they would pay $5 or more to stay in one.

The online survey asked 57,000 Agoda.com customers how they felt about environmental efforts by hotels. While 58% of all travelers said they preferred hotels that claimed to be environmentally friendly, 39% said they would pay an extra $10 or more per night to stay in one. Seventeen percent said they’d pay up to $5 more, and 31% said they wouldn’t pay anything more.

Travelers from the Netherlands, Denmark and the UK cared the least about eco-friendly hotels*. Only 35% of Danish and Dutch travelers and only 38% of UK travelers said they preferred them. They were among the least likely to want to shell out more cash, too, with 57%, 47% and 47% respectively saying they would not pay anything extra to stay in a green hotel.

The biggest fans of green hotels were travelers from China. An impressive 79% said they were more likely to stay in eco-friendly hotels. When it came to opening their wallets, though, they were a little less enthusiastic. Only 35% said they would pay $5 or more per night to stay in a green hotel.

When asked which environmentally-friendly hotel practices they liked the most, travelers picked use of environmentally-friendly cleaning products and recycling as their favorites, each taking about 37% of the total votes cast (respondents were allowed to select as many as they wanted from a list of eight common practices). The least popular was reusing towels and sheets, which got only 23% of the votes.

Most Important Green Business Practices:

• Use of environmentally friendly cleaning products 37.3%
• Recycling 36.8%
• Environmentally conscious construction and design 36.1%
• Waste reduction 35.7%
• Pollution prevention or reduction 32%
• Conservation of water 25.4%
• Conservation of electricity 24.9%
• Reuse of towels/sheets 23.1%
• None 17.2%

Valere Tjolle

Want to find out more about sustainable tourism? Special offers here: This week’s FREE Vision special sustainable tourism report offer HERE  Sustainable Tourism Masterclass London & Berlin HERE Tell your story to our massive green travel trade audience HERE