Corporate Social Responsibilty and the Affluent Traveler

What do affluent travelers want from airlines, hotels, resorts, tour operators and cruise lines when it comes to corporate social responsibility?

Conde Nast Traveler, whose magazine has about 810,000 affluent subscribers asked its readers some of those very questions and more and published the results in September 2011.

Here are responses to select Conde Nast Traveler questions:

Ninety-three percent said travel companies should be responsible for 'protecting the environment.'

What might protecting the environment look like according to Traveler readers:?

63 percent said building energy-efficient buildings.
76 percent said using solar power
69 percent said reuse towel (there’s the low-handing fruit for any hotel or resort)
63 percent said install low-flow toilets and showers
54 percent said use less air conditioning
51 percent said reuse wastewater
12 percent said provide carbon offsets through fees

The long-hanging fruit there is plainly reusing towels.

Likewise, 82 percent said that it’s fine if sheets get changed twice-weekly instead of daily, so as to conserve water.

Fifty-eight percent said that their choice of hotel is influenced by the support it gives to the local community.

When asked what the ideal length of time to do volunteer service during a luxury resort stay 44 percent said half a day, 39 percent said one day, 11 percent said two days, and 6 percent said more than 2 days.

Many of these issues are about communications, in some cases communicating what resorts, hotels, airlines, cruise lines and other travel companies are already doing. Eighty-six percent said they’d like hotels to explain how their contributing to their communities and the environment. Eighty percent asked the same thing of airlines.

What all this suggests to me is that companies in the travel business need to put their environmental, corporate social responsibility and cause marketing bona fides closer to the decision point. That section on corporate websites that talks about corporate social responsibility is just too far removed from where someone books their flights or rooms.

This is tricky business given that there are so many places to book a flight or a room these days that are acting only as agents.

In short, I see the need for some kind of a seal from a trusted third-party that asserts that the company displaying the seal meets some kind threshold for corporate social responsibility and environmental stewardship.

Comments

Part 2: How Chili's Used Cause-Related Marketing to Raise $8.2 million for St. Jude

[Bloggers Note: In this second half of this post I discuss the nuts and bolts of how Chili's motivates support from its employees and managers and how St. Jude 'activates' support from Chili's. Read the first half here.] How does St. Jude motivate support from Chili’s front line employees and management alike? They call it ‘activation’ and they do so by the following: They share stories of St. Jude patients who were sick and got better thanks to the services they received at the hospital. Two stories in particular are personal for Chili’s staff. A Chili’s bartender in El Dorado Hills, California named Jeff Eagles has a younger brother who was treated at St. Jude. In both 2005 and 2006 Eagles was the campaign’s biggest individual fundraiser. John Griffin, a manager at the Chili’s in Conway, Arkansas had an infant daughter who was treated for retinoblastoma at St. Jude. They drew on the support Doug Brooks… the president and CEO of Brinker International, Chili’s parent co...

Chili’s and St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital

I was in Chili’s today and I ordered their “Triple-Dipper,” a three appetizer combo. While I waited for the food, I noticed another kind of combo. Chili’s is doing a full-featured cause-related marketing campaign for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. There was a four-sided laminated table tent outlining the campaign on the table. When the waitress brought the drinks she slapped down Chili’s trademark square paper beverage coasters and on them was a call to action for an element of the campaign called ‘Create-A-Pepper,’ a kind of paper icon campaign. The wait staff was all attired in black shirts co-branded with Chili’s and St. Jude. The Create-A-Pepper paper icon could be found in a stack behind the hostess area. The Peppers are outlines of Chili’s iconic logo meant to be colored. I paid $1 for mine, but they would have taken $5, $10, or more. The crayons, too, were co-branded with the ‘Create-A-Pepper’ and St. Jude’s logos. There’s also creatapepper.com, a microsite, but again wi...

Cause-Related Marketing with Customer Receipts

Walgreens and JDRF Right now at Walgreens…the giant pharmacy and retail store chain with more than 5,800 stores in the United States and Puerto Rico… they’re selling $1 paper icons for the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF). This is an annual campaign and I bought one to gauge how it’s changed over the years. (Short list… they don’t do the shoe as a die cut anymore; the paper icon is now an 8¾ x 4¼ rectangle. Another interesting change; one side is now in Spanish). The icon has a bar code and Jacob, the clerk, scanned it and handed me a receipt as we finished the transaction. At the bottom was an 800-number keyed to a customer satisfaction survey. Dial the number, answer some questions and you’re entered into a drawing for $10,000 between now and the end of September 2007. I don’t know what their response rate is, but the $10,000 amount suggests that it’s pretty low. Taco Bell’s survey gives out $1,000 per week. At a regional seafood restaurant they give me a code that garner...

Cause Marketing

Search This Blog