The Secret to Making Your STR Business More Sustainable (and Profitable!)

Hello, my name is Bob Garner from Environmental and this is the second of a series of specialist videos solely for the Boostly audience to help you maximize your involvement in sustainability and build your business getting more direct bookings. So, as I said, this is the second in a series. So let's get straight on to talk about this topic today. First of all, why am I telling you about these things and why is it important? Well, as I said in the previous video, there is a climate emergency. And even today, as I record this in early February, it's just been announced that last year there was global warming of at least 1.5 degrees Celsius for the whole of the year of 2023. Clearly it's going to be impacting on us and we have some work to do. Travellers are changing their behaviour and starting to understand the impact of the climate emergency of climate change and therefore starting to think about how they can be more responsible when they go on holiday where they stay. So this is a fantastic opportunity for you to capitalise by taking some simple steps that we're talking through in this series and getting you to tap into that business for those, those people who want a sustainable stay. These actions are not complicated. I've been doing them for 20 years with my business, Casaldi Vicki in Italy, and my role here is to help you tap into these simple actions that are going to make a difference for your business. So let's first talk about the business advantages of being sustainable, as I did in the previous session. First, it's growing your business and tapping into that growing market, the market of people who are looking for a sustainable stay that is only going to continue to grow and you need to be able to access their market and the way that you do that is by taking some steps and talking about those so people can find you as a sustainable stay. That means building your brand and talking about what you do and tapping in to that direct and repeat bookings from people who are looking for sustainable stay. If you are still using the OTAs, and obviously the idea is that you reduce and eliminate your reliance on OTAs, but the OTAs are starting to rank properties and badge them if they are sustainable. So if you do use them, then you need to be thinking about using those badges and of course reducing your costs. One of the great things of being sustainable is actually reducing your cost, reducing your marketing, bringing your cost down and improving your bottom line. And that will obviously have an impact on your profile. You want to be building your profile, what you do, how you do it and advancing and enhancing your brand. And also you want to be future proofing your business against legislation and regulation because those things are coming in which are going to be restricting what you can do. So getting ahead of that game and taking simple steps is the model that we're trying to promote here today. And publicity, it's amazing the publicity that you can get by starting to take some steps around sustainability. And the role of enviro rental, as I'll be talking about, is to help you do that and get more business. There are a lot more advantages and you'll find them all on our homepage of Environmental Earth. I'd encourage you to go and take a look and get in touch with us. So in the previous webinar, we talked about reviewing your energy tariff and why that was important and the way you can do that. If you haven't seen the previous webinar, I'd encourage you to go back and take a look at that because that's all around energy tariff. But today we're going to be talking about plastic and how to review your use of plastic. We're talking about taking one simple action that's going to make a difference. So plastic is a wonderful product, but it's also an insidious product. We know that it pollutes our environment. It pollutes our beaches, our waterways, our rivers. We know that it goes into landfill. The vast majority of it is not recycled. And as we know, it takes hundreds of years to degrade. And so really what we're looking to do is reduce our single use plastic. And that is an action that you can take that your guests guests will find helpful, interesting and attractive. So first, how do you use plastic? It's important to understand where you use it in your rentals. And then you can start to decide what you can do about it. The quick wins are to start to look in your kitchen and your bathroom. That is where a lot of plastic is used that you might want to eliminate or reduce. And we're talking here about the, the shower dispensers and the show shampoo dispensers and the cleaning products, all the things that go into the kitchen and the bathroom that you can do something about and that is around eliminating them and, and finding alternatives which might be a pump dispenser in the shower or in the bathroom which you can refill in the kitchen. It might be instead of throwing away each cleaning gun or spray each time it's empty, each refilling it and using it again because that gun or that container used for hundreds of times for many years. It doesn't need to and shouldn't be thrown away after every single use. So that's about understanding where products that you can buy, they're going to be good for the environment, which are refillable into those containers rather than buying one each time you use it. So thinking about where you use plastic in the kitchen, in the bathroom is a great way forward. And you'll find lots of guidance on the environmental website. But then it's also important to communicate those actions. Communicate what you're doing, let people know. If people don't know that you're doing it, then how can they appreciate the efforts that you're making? And that might be about a page on your website, it might be some entry in your digital guide if you have such a thing. It might be that you want to do a social media post about it. But it's really important to start to communicate that and guests will appreciate your efforts. They will understand the efforts that you're trying to make and that they may be small, but you're on a path to take other actions in the future. People understand that plastic needs to be kept to a minimum. And if they see that you're taking some simple steps to do that, they will appreciate it and that will be very useful. You'll find guidance on all of this on the environmental website. We've written blogs about it and it's in our Roadmap. I would encourage you to go there and understand this topic in a lot more detail. You'll find all the steps that you need to take and how to do it and the companies that you can use on the website. No time to do that here today of course, Enviro Rental is a one stop cost, free shop for you and all your resources about sustainability and short term rentals. That is all environmental does is put all those resources together. The case studies, the blogs, the roadmap, the news, the information, everything. Anything you could possibly want around sustainability in short term rentals you will find on Environmental Earth. And thanks to amazing sponsors like Boostly. All the information is free on the website. There are no costs whatsoever once you sign up and register. So I would encourage you to go there and use that information and get in touch with us if you need more help. And thank you to Boostly for being one of our amazing sponsors, which means we can give this information away for free. Again, I want to repeat what I always say is when you take action, what's really, really important is do you brand yourself, tell people what you're doing, let them understand. If people don't know, then they can't come to you with an appreciation of your offering as a sustainable stay. Be clear about what you're doing, don't greenwash, don't exaggerate, just put down the things that you're doing and possibly put down what you plan to do in the future. Put it on social media, put it in a digital guide, put it on your website. However you can get that message out, then it's important that you do that so people understand that you're a sustainable brand, that you're trying to do the right thing for the environment. And you will see the benefits coming back in terms of increased business, more direct bookings, more repeat bookings, better reviews. And those things are really important for building your business. Travellers are looking for sustainable accommodation. We think that from the information that comes out from booking and Expedia, around 80% of people would like to stay in a sustainable stay. You can appeal to them through your brand if you market yourself and brand yourself appropriately. Taking the first step is sometimes the hardest. But a lot of the things that I will be recommending in these series of webinars or very low cost or no cost. So I'd encourage you to take that first step and talk about it. Don't be shy. It's important that people know about it and once they know about it then they are going to be interested to understand more and choose you over one of your competitors who's doing nothing. And a quick Before I finish, Scale Green shout out. Scale Green is the first conference solely dedicated to sustainability and short term rentals for property managers. It's taking place in London on 23rd April and for those of you who can come along, we'd encourage you to grab a ticket because it's a very small, limited attendance and we will be spending several hours talking about all the topics around sustainability for short term rentals, property owners. And it's a great opportunity to get involved face to face and learn, take action and build your business. So thank you very much. This is number two in a series of webinars specifically for Boostly and there'll be another one coming along very soon. Take care.