Sabre's Green Travel Study Unveiled

(Dive Travel Business News - December 28, 2010) -- The recent Green Traveler Study sponsored by Sabre Holdings, the US travel technology organization has revealed 10 key findings:

1.  Eco-Travelers Become Greener: This year's sample of travelers was more significantly more eco-conscious, shopping locally, recycling more at home and at work, buying recycled products, and avoiding unnecessary purchases and 5% more of respondents acted on their environmental concerns when traveling.

2.  The Green Price Point: Eco-Travelers have a low tolerance for High Premiums: 62% of respondents said that they did not pay extra to stay at a “greener hotel” in the last 12 months. And 87.3% of travelers paid between 0 and 5%, which represents more than a 13% increase over 2009.

3. Travel Industry’s Sustainability Practices Improved,  "Greenwashing" still an Issue
How green is travel in 2010? Slightly better than 2009, according to respondents. Too many travel companies are doing little or nothing to minimize their environmental impact; other businesses’ highly-touted recycling and conservation efforts were often viewed as superficial “greenwashing.” Overall, the industry still needs work in implementing truly sustainable practices.

4. The Green Leadership Vacuum: Room for Differentiation
Between 2009 and 2010, the only brand that managed to maintain a clear, green identity was Costa Rica, whose national parks and biological diversity have made it a perennial favorite with eco-travelers. Most travel brands failed to make a “green impression” on eco-travelers

5. Green Skepticism: The Need for Certification
While on the one hand more trusting of the claims made by green travel suppliers — perhaps armed with peer verification gleaned from peer review travel sites — they were also savvy and possibly jaded when it came to green advertising. Over 40% of respondents looked for 3rd party certification to verify that a travel supplier is truly “environmentally friendly.” And 91.6% of respondents said that a hotel’s environmental rating is an influence.

6. Business Travel: a step backwards — for now.
Business travel actually increased this year among respondents, outperforming the larger economy, and a new question found that most respondents worked for companies that did not have an environmentally friendly business travel policy.

7. Meeting and event planning: a promising sector stalls
As more of society and business “goes green,” so do the expectations of event attendees. More than 86% of respondents this year said that it was at least somewhat important to them that organizers of business events utilize environmentally friendly practices, but most organizers fail to do so.

8.  Disaster = Opportunity for Voluntourism
In the past two years, voluntourism has emerged as the “hot” new form of travel. More than a few media outlets have identified the combination of volunteering with travel as one the fastest growing segments in the travel industry.

9. Travelers Influenced by Each Other — Not Advertising
This year’s survey again demonstrated unequivocally that peer influence has the greatest influence on eco-conscious consumers when planning a vacation. Peer review travel sites continued to be a dominant influence on travel decisions, and social media was twice as important a source of information as advertising for eco-travelers.

10. The Return of the Travel Agent?
Conventional wisdom holds that the travel agent is a vanishing species in the Internet age. The survey shows that when travelers have a green agenda, that’s not the case. 58.1% of respondents said that they would be inclined to use the services of a travel agent trained by a certification body like ASTA to offer sustainable travel choices, up slightly from last year. In fact, almost a third of respondents had made a travel purchase from a travel agent in the last 12 months — a jump of almost 6% from respondents in the 2009 survey.

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