The “green” incarnation of travel, called ecotourism, mandates that travelers minimize their cultural, economic, and environmental impacts as much as possible to promote sustainability. But while there are thousands of hotels worldwide that promote themselves as “green”, many of them are only partially fulfilling these requirements - they might not be wasting energy, but are paying locals at near-slave wages, or funneling money out of the local economy.
Whole Travel, a new site that launches tonight, is looking to keep these hotels honest while promoting the concept of sustainable travel. The site assigns each hotel with a score based on its environmental, cultural, and economic impacts, as well as its “customer interaction”, or how well it teaches visitors about the issues that affect their destination.
To receive a score, hotels first self-assign a rating based on how well they think they fare in each category. Whole Travel CEO Matthew Davie acknowledges that these scores will be biased, but believes that submitting a misleading score would actually hurt hotels in the long run, as readers of the site would be able to tag them as dishonest and discourage prospective customers. However, the site isn’t relying on good faith alone - it is also working with local non-profits around the world to verify rating for hotels in their regions. The site is also working with international non-profits like Sustainable Travel International, which has similar goals but is based on a “badge” system that hotels need to pay for to become accredited as Green.
Besides the new hotel rating system, Whole Travel also includes a number of more standard features that you’d expect on a travel site. Users can search for hotels using descriptive keywords rather than location names (you could search for “relaxing” for a list of locations that fit the bill). The site also includes standard lists of hotel pricing and links to Kayak to book flights and hotels.
As a travel site Whole Travel isn’t doing anything new - you can aggregate hotel listings on countless other places across the web. But its “green” hotel rating system could prove both very popular and very lucrative, provided the site is able to establish credibility. And with partnerships with major hotel chains already in the works, the company may not be far from painting the world - and its pocketbook - green.
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Good luck taking advantage of the whole GREEN thing! How trustworthy are these partnerships?
I am eco-friendly in my own way, really donno if I want to know if the Marriot is paying $7.80 per hour to their employees.
Well then there are people who will definitely use it !!!
Insanely stupid. Who cares? All these elitist green types with junk science make themselves feel better and push for GLOBAL arrangements such as the Kyoto Protocol which are damaging to developing nations.
Welcome Eco-bubble, with all due respect, I don’t think this would be profitable. Deadpool.
With the green trend at a standstill as the economy sinks dontcha think they coulda picked a better time than now to launch this shindig?
What a negative bunch of comments! I think the concept of using the customer community to ensure that “ethical businesses” live up to their name is a good one. It may not make millions, but may make a modest return.
And its not fair to describe ecotourism as elitist (take woofing - http://www.wwoof.org - for example), or to generalise about the views of green types.
As to starting a business in a recession - not many of us have the luxury of choice.
The green business thing is slightly irritating, suggesting as it does that those of us who don’t wear our ethics on our sleaves aren’t ethical, but overall, its a force for good.
I think it is a great idea and yes there are a bunch of fellow there who are traveling green only.
So they picked a niche for their business and it is all right to me.
Great job on the site. Good Luck!
it would be even better if i could understand the how the cost changes when i go green vs. when i do not. i am poking around seeing if i can cost-effectively go on a greener vacation (extending my summer)… http://web-poet.com/2008/09/30/sustainable/
It’s 2008, link your logo to your home page and ditch the ‘home’ link. Geez.
Congrats on your launch - I like the idea of rating how green hotels are.
At TravelMuse we’re also interested in promoting ecotourism http://www.travelmuse.com/sections/ecotourism
Good luck!
Fiona
Wonderful idea, nicely executed. There are some great hotels in there that will fit nicely into a FlightBag.
I totally endorse the idea of making business’ claims about their green credentials transparent and honest as it a) makes it easier for those who are telling the truth to stand out, b) stops the bullshit from others who claim to be green because they recycle their paper.
18 months ago, one of my businesses, TYF Eco Hotel, became the first organic hotel in Wales, and it’s been an interesting journey. Our food, beer, wine and spirits are 100% organic except when we just can’t find an organic alternative. We use 100% renewable electricity, give staff 2.5 days a year for community projects and are members of 1% for the Planet. It’s not always easy, but it’s one of the best business decisions I’ve ever made.
As for Kyoto, the comments are fair - the deals that it proposes are way out of date and off-course in terms of delivering the equity and security that are needed. For a robust and practical perspective, have a look at Aubrey Meyer’s work on Contraction and Convergence http://www.gci.org.uk
It’s interesting to see a ‘flights’ tab at No 2 position in the whole travel site - taking one long distance would double my carbon footprint. If we’re serious about staying within CO2 limits that avoid the worst probabilities of dangerous climate change, we need, as a minimum to ‘flatline’ emissions from aviation: no airport growth, no more flights, and a distribution of existing availability so that’s equitable. It doesn’s seem reasonable to have ‘green’ and ‘flights’ on so many websites that promote tourism that’s good for the planet.
I agree that steps taken in the direction of becoming greener is a good thing. I also agree with the comment earlier that this type of business is difficult to monetize without advertising whereas the other big green travel website, http://www.rezhub.com, has the complete booking foundation completed. This business model makes a lot more sense to me.