Happy New Year to you all!
With 2016 having delivered a few shocks and changes to the world as we knew it, 2017 will no doubt present us with the challenges of adapting to these changes. However, for us at Considerate Hoteliers 2016 was a fantastic year as we expanded our team with great new colleagues, moved to fabulous new offices and were able to announce new CSR advisory projects for clients such as Mustique, The Oetker Collection and Steigenberger Hotels. Additionally we launched the first ever sustainability index for hotels in collaboration with Hotel Owner and with the support of TripAdvisor, ITP as well as the CDP.
Therefore 2017 for us promises to be exciting, not least as we will focus on the execution of the above projects, but also because it is the International Year of Sustainable Tourism for Development (#IY2017), launched by the UNWTO in order to integrate the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) firmly into the tourism industry.
In the words of the WTO’s General Secretary: “2017 presents a unique opportunity to explore and highlight tourism’s potential to help transform our world into a place of prosperity and wellbeing for all“.
The five main areas of focus of this initiative are:
1. Inclusive and sustainable economic growth
2. Social inclusiveness, employment and poverty reduction
3. Resource efficiency, environmental protection and climate change
4. Cultural values, diversity and heritage
5. Mutual understanding peace and security
Our commitment at Considerate Hoteliers to driving these issues forward is by launching a new series of workshops and other educationals to help all UK hotel employees to be part of this exciting year. For our international clients we endeavour to help them adapt their individual CSR strategies to involve the SDG’s and create specific projects covering the main five areas of actions as highlighted above. The key element here is to find ways of inspiring employees in such a way as to then carry this important message to your guests and traveller.
We hope you join us in paving the road to sustainable tourism even further in this exciting year of 2017!
Xenia zu Hohenlohe
Partner/Director of Marketing
