Travel, The New Year and SEO

2012 is here and yes I have to confess to a fair bit of blog neglect, well with today that all changes.  


It's been goo to have the holiday season, and with the new year is seems like the world of sustainable travel seems to be growing daily, Google alerts for ecotourism seem to be on the rise, which doesn't necessarily mean that ecotourism is on the rise it may just be the obvious of more bloggers and journalists writing about it but I'd like to think that there's a chance that it's growing on a really tangible level.   


SEO, three letters that I think we're gradually gaining more of an overall understanding of.  Ecothreesixty.com is gradually going up the Google rankings, are we anywhere close to where we want to be, no not at all, are we getting there, I think so bit by bit.  If you'd like to help, feel free to check out ecothreesixty.com.  


What's next?  Watch this space.   

How hotel chains can learn from Scandic

When most of us think of Eco-Tourism we think of the small lodge in the jungle which is solar-powered, and recycles all the human waste etc etc.  But the reality is that it's not just a field for small independent operators any more.  Many of the chains are starting to make serious commitments to both the environment and their local communities.

I'm not going to do a deep case study of the Scandic Hotel Chain, although I think it's probably worth doing at some stage so, perhaps keep an eye out for that.  Basically put, Scandic is a mid range hotel chain from Sweden, with both a strong offering for business travellers and families, the Scandic chain is spread through out the Scandinavian countries, and is gradually expanding into other countries in Northern Europe.  But what marks out Scandic from most of the other hotel chains in Europe is that their Sustainability Programme reads like a "how to guide" to Sustainable Hospitality.

They started developing their programme back in 1993, hats off there, certainly well ahead of the curve, and they have been refining it and improving it ever since and quite frankly it really shows.  I imagine one of the hardest things to do if you start an environmental policy from scratch is knowing where to start.  In looking through their comprehensive programme, you can see that they worked and worked on it.  

I can't deny a degree of self-interest because we list a number of their hotels.  But the main reason is because our whole ethos at ecothreesixty.com is to take the word "Eco" or "Sustainable" or "Ethical" and not have these terms that just mean something to special interest groups but to put in into the mainstream of travel.  And by focusing on Scandic, perhaps we can push some the other hotel chains to thinking about how they can improve and actually bring a degree of competition to eco policies within the larger hotel groups, to have the most developed eco offering for their customers.  

A Review of the "Green Rooms" book

I've seen this book a couple of times in bookshops and last Friday I thought I'd treat myself.  Not to mention that is was reduced.  So I felt obligated to pick it up, thumb through and then even buy it.  


Firstly before even checking starting into the worth of the book itself I took a cursory glance over it to check its own "green" credentials before looking more closely at it's contents, and yes it had a badge telling me that the CO2 emmissions had been offset by putting money into projects that work on reducing carbon emissions.  So if you believe in off-setting (and yes, I'll come back to that), it basically has a tick there and it also had a FSC mixed sources badge.  So hooray, a book that was about green rooms, which was quite green, in and of itself.   


So on to the book, it has a foreword by Richard Hammond one of the leading ecotourism writers within the UK who has his own column in The Guardian and as the papers eco travel correspondent. Then you get a sound overview and some basic background into the ideas and principles of ecotourism.  And Tourism Concern also offers you "Responsible Travel Tips" which gives you some basic pointers on how not to be exploitative when travelling.  All fine well and good so far.  


One thing I like about the guide, is that instead of talking about lodges or hotels or self-catering etc, rooms give it a great deal of flexibility and as a result there are rooms in eco-lodges like Guludo Beach Lodge but there are also "eco-hotels" like Fairmount Chicago, but also more eclectic fare like The Hoopoe Yurt Hotel, Whitepod and Damaraland Camp.  


The actual "Green Room" pages themselves, are nice and clear, each has a brief breakdown enabling the reader to do a quick scan.  It has the usual things like rates, best time to go etc.  On the eco side each listing has the amount of CO2 that would be generated for one person to travel from the various major cities around the world to that particular room, it helps give you a snap shot of what our travel actually costs the planet.  Beneath it are the amounts it will cost to offset the CO2 emissions generated by your trip.  Like you can just add that on to the cost of the trip, and it will take away all the carbon generated by the trip, which you can't.  Once it it has been released, it is out there and there's no putting it back.  Anyway, I think some good and bad there. 


Ultimately this is a "before you go guide" rather than "a guide for when you are there", it is 311 pages long excluding and being about the same width as a Lonely Planet or Rough Guide for a small country, it is not comprehensive enough for you to find places when you are actually within a country.  


As you go through the book there's various ideas for excursions and experiences and which have an ecotourism bent.  Like "Paddle Power" canoing around Isla Espiritu Santo (if you go, feel free to add to the minimal wikipedia entry) the trip is so eco-friendly that you "pack in", everything that you "pack out" which in the case of the trip taken by the contributors includes taking your own poo home with you, as there is no bacteria in the sand on the island.  There are other ideas like "The Grizzly Trail", "Spotting Jaguars" and "Karma Down" (shameless punning is apparently quite acceptable in some ecotourism circles).  These brief ideas and suggestions break up the listings nicely and also give you some unique travel ideas which I think really live up to the ethos of ecotourism.  


As well as the actual trip ideas there are other pages dotted through out the book which are more geared to educating readers on issues surrounding green travel, ecotourism and ethical tourism (one day these will all fit perfectly into a single, catch-all term). There are passages on "Should I hire a Car?" "Should I give to beggars?" and "Tribal Welfare", these help to add insight into the main point of the book and it is perfect for the dipping in and out reader, which is ultimately how the book is set out.  


What I really like about this book, is that it isn't overly preachy, it doesn't feel like it has been written by a group of revolutionaries who are going to make you feel like leaving your home is a crime against the planet, it deals with things in a balanced, intelligent way.  I think on balance I would give it a 7/10 and happily recommend it to anyone who was interested in planning an eco trip or who just wanted to learn more about the field itself.  

The Last Week

Well a it's been a busy week.  Working on the various different elements that go into Eco Accommodation. The struggle I've been wrestling with is that you can either write something in relation to an area of an accommodations offering that it is very detailed and perhaps overly specific, or something that is more general but verges on being so vague as to really not be fit for the purpose of giving a wider understanding of the "eco" terms around eco accommodation. So for example something like "waste management" it's obvious what it means. But the manifestation of this management of can be so varied, it can be tricky to nail down. An Eco lodge can have such a different offering to its guests from an eco urban hotel. I think it can be split simply into two straight forward catagories, there is the minimisation of waste by controlling consumption at source, for example, smart lighting which turns on when there is movement in a guest's room and turns off when there isn't.  The other form of waste management is the more obvious is the more obvious, namely the management of waste after it has been created, like sewage or plastic for example.  Anyway, I'm still wrestling with it all so more tales of further definitions to follow no doubt.  On another note, the ecothreesixty.com website is getting more pages indexed by Google which is a great, we're now comfortably into double figures.  

Back to the Blogging & Eco Tourism Conferences (that I can't go to)

Well, a little time has elapsed between since my last blog posting.  So, I have resolved to sort it out and make sure I post one blog a week at 2pm every Thursday (UK Time), well there maybe with the odd exception, but best efforrt.  For a commitment resistant male this is a big step, and now I have committed to it.  Obviously there's the fear to be gotten over, but.  Deep breath, yep that's it, it's gone.  Who knows, if I get really into it I may even post more than once a week!  But for now I'll just try and keep up with the once a week.  


So, this week. Well the ecothreesixty.com website is starting to shape up, we're pretty much getting there, but like writing, you're never completely finished there's always something to improve.  Something that has been nudged out of alignment by something else.  It seems to be much like DIY, it takes far longer than you first imagined and is never quite finished, which seems to be the same as one's life plans you spend ages working on working towards them and there's always that bit left to do.  The main thing I've been wrestling with, are the definitions (which by the way, I am still in the grip of) for the various elements of sustainability and ethical practices of eco lodges and eco hotels.  There are so many, it's a test to find the right balance between a broad and open definition, but at the same time without sounding too vague and lacking any real weight.  When they are done I'll post links to them and welcome comments, I suspect further refinement will follow.  


Over the past week I've been made aware of various different conferences that are coming up around the world, whose purpose is to promote and develop ecotourism which is great!  This awareness has been tempered by the knowledge that unfortunately due to their various different locations I can't attend them.  Two which I definately can't make is Kenya's 4th Annual EcoTourism Conference and there's also The 2011 Global Eco Conference which is primarily focused on eco-tourism but for some reason it looks like the words eco-tourism, ethical travel, sustainable travel haven't been included in the title, which seems to be a slight oversight.  But they seem to have a wealth of really good Keynote Speakers so to anyone from Oz near Sydney or visiting, I'd do my best to get there if I were you, between the 7th and the10th November, if I were you.  


Anyway it's Friday evening, and so without further delay goodbye, until next week and my next posting.  Thanks for reading.  

Greenfuzzing?

Leading on from my posting last week, I gave some more thought to another very basic error made by many providers of eco accommodation and this time it is more about an simple error, rather than economising on facts.  Ecotourism being a growing market that it is, not surprising many accommodation providers struggling in the hard economic times it is understandable. Last time I checked, and I forgot where I read it, but the study stated that ecotourism had grown by 67% in the previous year, which is an incredible level of growth, but compared to the world travel industry as a whole, it is less than a tiny speck.  So what can ecotourism focused hotels and lodges do to make their tiny share of the world travel market just that little bit bigger. 

Over the past few years while learning more about the field of ecotourism and the wider green/eco cause I have come across the term “greenwashing” time and time again.  From bloggers trying to highlight the eagerness of some eco hotels and eco lodges to finesse or massage their eco/green offering by basically taking a half-truth and exaggerating it beyond recognition.  An example of this might be from a hotel stating on their website they have a “strict and comprehensive recycling policy” when in reality all they do is put their paper in the recycling bin.  That would be a solid example of people “greenwashing”.  The most hardcore form of "greenwashing" would obviously to just make up or copy someone else’s eco policy and put it on the hotels or lodges website. 

But I’ve been becoming more aware of late of a sort of, for the want of a better word, “greenfuzzing”.  Which can be a complicated form of “greenwashing”, but after reading the countless examples of eco policies I think it is an example of fuzzy copywriting.  When you read about an eco lodge, they’ll tell you how their committed to making the world a better place.  And it might be just me, after a little introduction to the ethos or philosophy I just want to get down to the hard facts of what they do in relation to the environment and the local community.  But that’s not always how it reads. 

Many eco lodges get too hung up on over the top description, or adding copy finesse, to make it more of a selling point than perhaps it is.  I think people in the main, and this is my personal experience, people value plain speaking.  So it you have a sewage treatment process that involves worms chewing away happily on peoples effluent just say that, concisely and clearly.  Yes detail is good, but speaking to most people, they just want to be able to scan through quickly see examples of the policy in action where possible, but really just get a good overview and then consider the other elements of the accommodation at more length.  This over complication of simple facts is what I would define as “greenfuzzing” where effectively the information is there, but you have to dig and sift through it to actually find out what you want.  I think as ecotourism grows out of its niche area, eco hotels and eco lodges will need to think about selling their offering by using terminology that is eco transparent.  

A simple misunderstanding?

A couple of weeks ago, a company that shall remain nameless, contacted me on twitter, saying they’d be interested in being listed on ecothreesixty.com.  I did the usual thing of checking over their website to see who they were, what they do and what their “eco” credentials were.  Other than offering what look liked very attractive excursions on the great barrier reef, they actually had nothing in their offering to guests, that was actually geared towards either minimising their impact on their immediate environment, improving their immediate environment, or improving the wider environment.  It wasn’t the first time I had encountered an “eco” lodge without any “eco” credentials. 


While researching eco accommodations to list on ecothreesixty.com, we found plenty of so called “Eco Lodges” which were small operations whose "eco" dimension was that they were small, but that was the most environmentally positive thing that could be said for them.  As time has moved on, we’ve found the overwhelming majority of places positioning themselves as “eco-friendly” or “green” accommodations, have made a reasonable attempt to live up to those terms.  

It can always be argued that some people will always stick on a label that is current, or that they think will help sell their hotel or lodge.  You need to only look at the word luxury and see how often it is applied to hotels, and see how; in many cases it isn’t really accurate.  But I honestly think there are people out there amongst the hospitality trade who do not really know what ecotourism actually is.  And that is surprising, as it is growing area of travel and number of guests or travellers who do know what the word means are part of that growth.  So if you do use the word as a tag to attract business without any clear eco credentials I think you will actually start to see your business suffer, especially as guests who feel short changed post comments on TripAdvisor.  

But to go back to my initial reason for posting, when I sent a tweet back to the company operating on the great barrier reef, saying we’d be happy to list them once I could see on their website their eco credentials, I got no response and when I checked my followers list, they had unfollowed us.  Were they guilty of a little bit of conscious “greenwashing” or were they just under the misapprehension that “eco” can mean anything where nature is involved, I guess I’ll never know.  But thankfully, I think one by one making a case for a “misunderstanding” is just getting that little bit harder.