The number of hotels with recognised sustainability certification remains limited, with leading bed bank Hotelbeds reporting that not many more than 8,000 properties on its platform are certified to Global Sustainable Tourism Council standards.
Hotelbeds offers 300,000-plus properties in addition to more than 18,000 tours and activities.
Elena Perez Cabello, Hotelbeds Group chief human resources officer, reported on the company’s Green Hotels programme, said: “We give privileged visibility on our platform to 8,000-plus hotels certified to GSTC standards.
“We added a handful of big hotel chains with certification programmes, which take it to almost 38,000 properties.”
Cabello highlighted the higher conversion rate of certified properties, noting: “The conversion rate of Green Hotels is 12.68% when the normal rate is 3%-6%. That shows real interest. We plan to expand the scheme to activities, tours and experiences.”
However, Cabello said: “It’s difficult to maintain a base [of certified hotels]. We need to ensure certifications remains up to date. It’s less difficult with the hotel chains, but with certified hotels we need to check each year and it’s a manual process. We need to find a way to automate this. It is the biggest challenge.”