Volume #1
Traveling during low season | Debunking booking.com’s Travel Sustainable Badge (Part 1: Waste)
This week’s read time: 7 minutes
In this volume, we’ll explore:
The benefits of opting for direct booking in travel arrangements
Debunking booking.com’s Travel Sustainable Badge (Part 1: Waste)
If you missed previous newsletters, you can look them up here.
👉🏼 Book Direct
What’s in it for you?
Cost saving: Booking directly can sometimes lead to lower prices, it eliminates the commission fees charged by third-party booking platforms such as Online Travel Agencies (OTAs). Some hotel chains such as Marriott & Hilton even offer "Lowest Price Guarantee." They're basically saying, "If you find a cheaper rate elsewhere, we'll match it, maybe even beat it."
Loyalty Programs: If you travel often, you’ll understand that loyalty programs are your backstage pass to awesome perks. Sure, you could save a few bucks booking elsewhere, but being in the loyalty programs might get you room upgrades, early check ins, late check outs, discounts and even complimentary rooms.
Flexible: Remember the lesson we all learnt during COVID times where dealing with cancellations, booking changes and refunds through third-party platforms was a real pain in the ***. Direct bookings often come with more flexibility – think simple cancellation policies and easy-peasy reservation changes.
What’s in it for Planet, People & Economy?
🌏 Conservation: When customers book directly, hotels can afford to invest more in sustainable initiatives. This might include energy-efficient technologies, waste reduction measures, and eco-friendly amenities.
👥 Reduce Economic Leakage: Direct bookings ensure that a more significant portion of your payment goes directly to the local businesses and individuals providing the services. This supports the livelihoods of local communities.
💼 Fair Compensation: By avoiding third-party platforms, which may charge high commissions, businesses can retain a larger share of their earnings. This enables them to provide fair wages to their employees and contribute to the local economy.
👉🏼 Debunking booking.com’s Travel Sustainable Badge (Part 1: Waste)
In 2021, Booking.com rolled out a Travel Sustainable filter and badge to help travelers identify accommodations that are taking extra steps to make their guests' stays more sustainable.
We're here to unravel the mysteries behind every badge and icon, revealing how each one plays its part in the whole sustainability scene.
Why you should care!
These accommodations can sometimes be much more than just a bed for the night; they can elevate your travel experience to a positive and meaningful journey.
Now, you might be wondering, "What does food waste have to do with my travel experience? Why should I care about double-glazed windows in my accommodation?" Well, trust us, each of these actions significantly contributes to your comfort and overall satisfaction.
Supporting businesses with sustainable practices also encourages the broader travel industry to adopt similar measures. This, in turn, contributes to a positive shift toward more responsible and sustainable tourism on a global scale. So, your children and your children’s children will still have the opportunity to see our beautiful planet as we know it.
Piqued your interest? Good! Read on, and we promise you won’t be disappointed.
We are not endorsing booking.com’s label as 100% reliable (that's a story for another day), and neither are we encouraging you to book your travels via Online Travel Agencies (OTAs) - story for another day too. Still, at least it’s a good start to help everyday humans make better travel choices.
Booking.com has broken them down into 5 categories: Waste, Water, Energy & Greenhouse Gas, Destination & Community and Nature.
Today we’ll look into the meanings behind Waste 🗑️
👉Fun Fact👈
Have you ever thought about the amount of waste a tourist produces? On average, each tourist produces about 1.6 kg of waste. For a 1-week holiday, you would produce about 11.2 kg of waste for the destination you are visiting, that’s equivalent to filling your carry on luggage with rubbish to the brim and then some! Just putting it here for ya.
Under Waste 🗑️, you have the following categories:
Recycling bins available to guests and waste is recycled
Food Waste Policy in Place
Water Cooler/Dispenser
Single-use Shampoo, Conditioner, and Body wash Bottles not used
Single-use Plastics
1. Recycling bins available to guests and waste is recycled
By now, we should all know the importance of recycling, but what you may not know is that only about 32% of our trash gets recycled. What happens to the other 68%? I’m glad you asked 👇🏼
Providing recycling bins at the accommodation is essentially the same concept as having a recycling bin at home. You don’t just stop recycling because you are on holiday; the world doesn’t stop, so why should you?
Ensuring waste is recycled is the key phrase here. A study among 120 hotels in Hoi An (Vietnam) shows that hotels produce about 2.5 kg of solid waste per guest per day, of which 58.5% is biodegradable, only 25.8% is recyclable, and 15.7% is other waste. So yes, if an accommodation can recycle that 25.8%, they absolutely should.
2. Food Waste Policy in Place
Food waste is definitely a topic that deserves more spotlight. Did you know that about 1/3 of all the food produced for human consumption goes to waste?
We're not just talking about uneaten food; we're also talking about the water, energy, packaging, transportation, and manpower that went into bringing it to the table. Further along the line, there's the cost of disposal.
Discarded food, just like our garbage, ends up sitting in landfills (like the one above), producing greenhouse gas (GHG) that contributes to climate change.
👉Fun Fact👈
If the amount of food wasted globally was represented as a country, it would be the third-largest GHG emitter, after China and the US. Let that sink in for a second. Yes, we humans are despicable, and don’t even get us started on the topic of food shortages.
When a hotel has a food waste policy in place, it essentially means that they are:
Lowering their greenhouse gas emissions: Food production, processing, and transportation contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. By minimising food waste, hotels can reduce their overall carbon footprint associated with the food supply chain.
Lowering Methane Emission: When food waste ends up in landfills, it decomposes, producing methane - a potent greenhouse gas. Proper management and reduction of food waste helps mitigate methane emissions.
Conserving Resources: The production of food requires land, water, energy, and other resources. Minimising food waste helps conserve these resources and reduces the environmental impact associated with agriculture and food production.
👉🏼 How could it benefit you as a traveler?
Addressing food waste challenges can inspire hotels to find innovative solutions, such as creative menu planning to utilize all edible parts of ingredients that could possibly bring new flavor explosions to your mouth. Who wouldn't want a holiday where every bite is a delicious adventure? It's a win-win for your taste buds and the planet!
3. Water Cooler/Dispenser
Let me ask you this: in the year 2024, how weak do you look without your very own reusable bottle? A reusable bottle is almost a fashionable accessory these days, and we would put it in the same category as having a Casetify phone case, AirPods, or a pair of weirdly shaped sunnies (Yes, we know, not sustainable, not sustainable, and not sustainable 💀).
When a hotel provides a water cooler/dispenser, it reduces the need for individual water bottles in guest rooms (plastic or not).
👉🏼 How could it benefit you as a traveler?
Free water, of course! Especially in countries where tap water is not safe to drink, water coolers or dispensers make it convenient for you to access fresh and filtered water whenever you need it. This enhances your overall experience by providing a basic amenity in a more sustainable manner.
In reality, accommodations can purchase water in bulk for water coolers, often at a much lower cost compared to individual bottled water, which leads to cost savings for the accommodation over time.
Now you may ask, if that is the case, why haven’t all accommodations adopted this yet? Well, honey, they are still hoping you will take the bait of unknowingly opening a bottle of overpriced Evian to increase their mini bar revenue (Hoteliers, you know what I’m talking about 😉)
4. Single-use Shampoo, Conditioner, and Body Wash Bottles Not Used
If we're being extremely honest here, this is an initiative very much loved by accommodations, and one that most gladly jumped on. Any cost-saving measures, they’re there! (Hoteliers, you know we’re looking at chu 😉)
And yes, accommodations have long figured out that you sneaky people can’t help but steal these shampoo, conditioner, and body wash bottles. They have finally found a remedy, and that is to switch to refillable containers.
Doing away with single-use bottles don’t just reduce single use plastic (more on that later), but also the product that goes into these bottles. You wouldn’t squeeze every last drop of shampoo out of those tiny containers, would you?
👉🏼 How could it benefit you as a traveler?
Now that accommodations can save on the amount spent on these individual bottles, they might choose higher quality, eco-friendly toiletries to be filled in refillable containers, enhancing your overall experience during your stay.
5. Single-use Plastics (There are many different categories for Single-use plastics, straws, bottles, cutlery etc, we will group them into one)
We believe that in the year 2024, single-use plastics is an absolute non-negotiable.
Straws and stirrers have a lifespan of 200 years, plastic bottles 450 years, and plastic bags 1,000 years! The existence of single-use plastics harms wildlife, damages Earth’s ecosystems, and puts microplastics into our food chain.
👉Fun Fact👈
Some scientists have estimated that the average person might eat 5 grams of micro-plastics in a week—about the weight of a credit card! Talk about all of us being plastic, huh!
In case you’re thinking, 'Well, having two plastic bottles in my room won’t hurt anyone.' that’s when you’re wrong. It's not solely about the plastic bottle; a recent study revealed that an average liter of plastic bottled water contains approximately 240,000 microscopic plastic particles. We highly recommend staying away from plastic bottles altogether for your own health concerns.
The next time you want to book accommodation on Booking.com, make sure to check if the accommodation is single-use plastic-free and think about the amount of credit cards you’ll be eating for the rest of the year. If only we could all just eat away the debts on our credit cards 😭.
Don’t miss out on Part 2, where we debunk the category of Water!🚰
P.S. We want to clarify that we have no affiliation with booking.com or any direct connections to the company.