Trend: Carbon Offsets Part of the Travel Business Plan

(May 2, 2008 - Modern Agent) -- Edwin Fuller, president and managing director of Marriott Lodging International said to delegates at the PATA CEO Challenge 2008: Confronting Climate Change in Bangkok, “In Europe, consumers say: ‘We will not buy your hotel unless you have an environmental program we can see.’”

Unsurprisingly, those environmental programs are now springing up in the private sector, despite a lack of incentives or environmental policy initiatives at government level in Asia. In the private sector, for example, Six Senses Resorts & Spas now invests 0.5 percent of gross income from each hotel back into a sustainable, environmental and responsible fund (SERF). This averages out at $100,000 per hotel per year across the group. Six Senses’ carbon offset program now replaces all carbon emissions from guests’ flights as well as emissions from hotel operations. The company offsets emissions from coal fired power plants in South India by replacing them with wind turbines.

Banyan Tree Hotels and Resorts has a corporate goal to cut carbon emissions between 10-30 percent per property and 20 percent across the group within 12 months. Marriott aims to reduce emissions by 20 percent in 10 years. Ninety-six percent of its hotels have embraced recycling. The remaining 4 percent can’t do it yet, because they lack support or facilities from the surrounding communities. Sonu Shivdasani, Chairman and CEO of Six Senses, summed up the direction the tourism industry is heading. He told delegates: “The travel industry needs sweeping goals. Not improvements of 10 to 20 percent, but 50 to 100 percent. Goals need to be structured in profit and loss plans. Eventually, we need to offset travel entirely,” he said. Visit www.PATA.org.

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