Tag: travel and tourism colleges in kolkata

Eco-Friendly Hotels: Reducing Carbon Footprint in the Hospitality Industry

Introduction:

As environmental consciousness grows, the hospitality industry is embracing sustainable practices to reduce its carbon footprint and contribute to a greener future. Eco-friendly hotels have become a significant trend, catering to environmentally-conscious travellers. Avlon Shikha Niketan, the best aviation institute in Kolkata, recognizes the importance of sustainability in the hospitality industry. In this article we will explore the concept of eco-friendly hotels, the benefits of adopting sustainable practices, and how Avlon Shikha Niketan prepares students for careers in this environmentally responsible sector.

  1. The Rise of Eco-Friendly Hotels:

Eco-friendly hotels, also known as green hotels or sustainable hotels, prioritize environmental sustainability in their operations. Avlon Shikha Niketan educates students about the importance of these practices and their impact on the industry. These hotels strive to reduce their carbon footprint, conserve natural resources, and promote responsible tourism. By implementing sustainable practices, eco-friendly hotels contribute to a greener and more sustainable future.

  1. Energy Efficiency Measures:

Avlon Shikha Niketan emphasizes the significance of energy efficiency in eco-friendly hotels. These hotels implement various measures to reduce energy consumption, such as using energy-efficient lighting systems, installing smart thermostats, and utilizing renewable energy sources like solar panels. By adopting these practices, hotels can significantly reduce their energy usage and carbon emissions, leading to cost savings and environmental benefits.

  1. Water Conservation Initiatives:

Water scarcity is a global concern, and eco-friendly hotels address this issue through water conservation initiatives. Avlon Shikha Niketan educates students on the importance of water-saving measures, such as installing low-flow fixtures, implementing wastewater recycling systems, and promoting guest awareness about water conservation. These practices not only contribute to water conservation but also result in cost savings for the hotel.

  1. Waste Management and Recycling:

Effective waste management is a crucial aspect of eco-friendly hotels. Avlon Shikha Niketan emphasizes the implementation of waste reduction, recycling, and composting programs. Hotels can minimize waste by reducing single-use items, implementing recycling programs for paper, plastic, and glass, and composting organic waste. By diverting waste from landfills, eco-friendly hotels demonstrate their commitment to sustainability.

  1. Sustainable Purchasing and Local Sourcing:

Avlon Shikha Niketan recognizes the importance of sustainable purchasing practices in eco-friendly hotels. These hotels prioritize sourcing environmentally friendly products and materials, such as organic linens, eco-friendly cleaning supplies, and locally produced food and beverages. By supporting local suppliers and reducing the carbon footprint associated with transportation, hotels contribute to the local economy and minimize environmental impact.

  1. Environmental Education and Guest Engagement:

Eco-friendly hotels go beyond internal sustainability practices by educating guests about their environmental initiatives. Avlon Shikha Niketan highlights the importance of guest engagement and environmental education in these hotels. Through informative signage, in-room materials, and guest programs, hotels can raise awareness among guests and encourage sustainable behaviors during their stay. This engagement fosters a sense of responsibility among guests and promotes a more sustainable tourism experience.

  1. Certifications and Green Building Design:

Avlon Shikha Niketan prepares students to understand the significance of certifications and green building design in eco-friendly hotels. Certifications such as LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and Green Globe provide recognition for hotels that meet specific sustainability criteria. The green building design incorporates environmentally friendly practices in the construction and operation of hotels, ensuring energy efficiency, water conservation, and waste reduction.

  1. Benefits of Eco-Friendly Practices:

Implementing eco-friendly practices in the hospitality industry offers numerous benefits. Avlon Shikha Niketan is the Travel and tourism colleges in kolkata, educates students on these advantages, including cost savings through reduced energy and water consumption, improved brand reputation and differentiation, increased guest loyalty, and a positive impact on the environment. By embracing sustainability, hotels can attract environmentally conscious travellers and contribute to the broader goal of mitigating climate change.

Conclusion:

Eco-friendly hotels play a significant role in reducing the carbon footprint of the hospitality industry. Avlon Shikha Niketan recognizes the importance of sustainability and prepares students for careers in this environmentally responsible sector. By adopting energy efficiency measures, water conservation initiatives, waste management practices, and sustainable purchasing strategies, eco-friendly hotels demonstrate their commitment to a greener future. With their understanding of these practices, graduates of Avlon Shikha Niketan are well-equipped to contribute to the growing demand for sustainable and eco-friendly hotels.

The Increasing Significance of Hotel Reputation Management

Reputation management has been lately gaining ground in the digital world, and the same is particularly earning a lot of prominence in the hotel industry. So today, let us take a closer look at the rising significance of hotel reputation management and the different facets of it.

30-second summary:

  • Sites like Yelp, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor have made sure that consumer-generated content has all the influence.
  • Investing in online reputation management creates the possibility to harness the new and growing revenue stream.
  • Online reviews are crucial resources for hotel managers to identify the results of their work from the point of view of the customers.

Hotel reputation management is all about monitoring and influencing how a hotel is perceived online. Though the concept emerged within public relations, it has shifted its focus towards the newly emergent review sites, search engines, and social media platforms. As such, at present, it involves keeping track of the review sites, posting and engaging on social media, optimizing the website for search, and the likes. In simple words, the online reputation of a hotel is crucial to its overall business, and staying on top of it is what hotel reputation management is all about. It makes a major difference in how the property performs against the ever-increasing competition in the field and registers sustained growth through each financial year.

In a world where 93 percent of the people read online reviews to determine which hotel they want to stay at and 53 percent of the people surveyed wouldn’t book a hotel that didn’t have online reviews, the importance of hotel reputation management cannot be stressed enough.

Keeping that in mind, we, at Avlon Shiksha Niketan, a well-known Tourism Management Institute in Kolkata, will take a closer look today at the different facets of the rising significance of hotel reputation management in current times.

Consumer-generated content can make or break hotel reputations

Before the internet boom, travelers referred to guide books like their very own Rough Guide or Lonely Planet. Get a good review in one of these popular publications, and your hotel’s reputation stays safe for years. But not anymore!

In fact, it won’t be an exaggeration to say that reputations can now change with a single click. One glorious review can make a potential customer consider staying at the hotel, and one full of scathing remarks can turn away customers by the bunch. In fact, studies reveal that when it comes to deciding between two similar properties, 79 percent of consumers are more likely to reserve a room at a hotel with a higher rating.

Sites like Yelp, Booking.com, and TripAdvisor have made it easier than ever for the travelers to share their experiences in real-time, and it impacts the decision-making of travelers more than nearly any other information that is available. Travelers rely more on the words of another traveler, and thus, consumer-generated content has all the influence.

The connection between hotel reputation management and revenue management

In this highly competitive environment of the hospitality industry, online reputation directly impacts sales volume. Efficient hotel reputation management aids you in securing a major competitive advantage. On the contrary, poor online reputation can potentially lead to huge losses. In fact, a one-star decrease in ratings can lead to almost 5-9 percent decrease in revenue.

Not paying heed to negative reviews and comments that come up on page one of Google tends to cost more in lost revenue than investing sufficient resources into efficient hotel reputation management. In most cases, business owners end up spending years creating a positive image of the brand and are surprised by how fast the hard-won reputation takes a hit, and the only way to prevent such an occurrence is by being proactive.

Corin Burr, director of Bamboo Revenue, London, sums up the link between revenue performance and guest reviews: “Of course, there are many contributing factors, but to watch your Revenue Generation Index increase as your Guest Satisfaction Index increases puts more science into the instinct.”

Investing in online reputation management creates the possibility to harness the new and growing revenue stream. After all, the way customers perceive and interact with your business gets directly impacted by your online reputation.

Hotel reputation: An indicator of the performance of the hotel

Hotel reputation management and the data derived from there also acts as a performance indicator for the business. Hotels can take advantage of online reputation as an operational tool, setting it as a key performance indicator as it lets hotels monitor and measure guest satisfaction and its enhancement.

This enables the hotels to establish a ranking or objective to be achieved within a stipulated period of time, recognize strategies and how the goal will be achieved, implement actions and analyze whether the changes are working and making a difference on the online reputation. Furthermore, online reviews act as crucial resources for the hotel managers to identify the results of their work from the viewpoint of the customers since there are often differences between the actual and perceived issues in the operations.

In other words, there are times when the hoteliers are left wondering where they are going wrong if they are doing everything by the book. The varied markers of hotel reputation clearly outline the issues to offer businesses an opportunity to be better than yesterday. If 76 percent of consumers are willing to pay more for a hotel with higher review scores, it makes sense for the hotels to go the extra mile for them, as well.

So, all in all, we can safely say that hotel reputation management has gone from being a possible addition to the revenue strategy of hotels to a crucial element for maintaining competitiveness in the industry. And as a future professional of the hospitality industry, you have a crucial role to play in ensuring that the reputation of the company you join is upheld and glorified consistently. Thus, if you have the ambition to join the hotel industry and wish to get acquainted with the industry-specific know-how that can help you rise as a successful professional in the domain, we, at Avlon Shiksha Niketan, one of the leading tourism management institutes in Kolkata, are right here to guide and mentor you on that path.

As your guiding light in becoming a proficient hotel management professional, we, at Avlon, leave no stones unturned to provide you with the necessary knowledge and hands-on training to help you excel in this regard. Get your skills honed at Avlon Shiksha Niketan to rise and shine as a highly valuable resource for your future employers.

5 Ways Tourism Sector is Most Likely to Rebuild Itself Post Pandemic

The pandemic has hit us hard, and no industrial sector has remained unaffected. But things are gradually moving back to place, and most industries are back on their path to recovery. So today, we, at Avlon Shiksha Niketan, have brought for you a deep insight into the various ways in which the tourism sector is rebuilding itself and what strategies are being put to use to bounce back to its previous glory.

30-second summary:

  • Tourism businesses have amped their marketing efforts to incentivize regional and domestic travel
  • Greater focus is being laid on environmental concerns, social impact, and corporate governance needs
  • Travelers, and thereby businesses, are focusing more on eco-tourism pursuits
  • Businesses are implementing better cybersecurity to deal with emerging data breaches and fraudulency
  • More emphasis on increased readiness and proper implementation of the health and safety protocols

In the setbacks and losses that the world has had to suffer because of the pandemic, several industries have hit major stumbling blocks. And we cannot deny the fact that the tourism sector is one such industry that faced the consequences of the lockdown and travel restrictions. It is a sector that has always held the distinction of being one of the highest contributors to the country’s GDP. However, with the pandemic looming large, the industry faced a serious loss of steady revenue generation.

And yet, the tourism sector leaders have continued to stay steadfast and strong in the face of this adversity. In the last couple of months, all of us have witnessed the efforts that the sector has been pouring in towards improving traveler safety, providing for their workforce, and supporting local communities. In fact, the business leaders are in a bid to take this crisis as an opportunity to rethink their policies and enable the sustainable growth of the sector. And so, here we are today to take a closer look at how the sector is most likely to rebuild itself post pandemic.

  1. Starting with regional and domestic tourism to promote traveling

At Avlon Shiksha Niketan, a well-known tourism management institute in Kolkata, we firmly believe that when travelers start navigating the post-pandemic world, local travel will come to the forefront as a safer, easier, and more sustainable option. In fact, reports suggest that 58 percent of individuals are eager to travel to nearby regions that are accessible by car.

In order to capitalize on the initial stage of recovery, tourism boards and organizations are more likely to focus their early marketing efforts on incentivizing regional and domestic travel. We can expect them to inspire eager travelers to explore nearby destinations and attractions. 24 percent of travelers are already interested in seeking out hidden gems to tell their local friends and family about. Thus, domestic tourism will be the first to get a boost, followed by a medium haul between regions and finally, international travel.

  1. Ingraining greater sustainability in the processes and practices

Studies report that over 73% of consumers are taking note of brands that are making a difference during COVID-19, and that includes making sustainable choices. After all, the lockdown has offered ample evidence of human impact on the environment. Thus, the businesses will have a renewed call to action and adopt more sustainable practices. Regardless of the scale, the businesses are expected to focus more on the ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) spectrum to address environmental concerns, social impact on local communities, and corporate governance needs.

Furthermore, travelers are likely to make a positive difference while traveling, thereby turning to eco-tourism. Thus, businesses would develop their portfolio of natural destinations and highlight their ecological benefits.

  1. Bring greater spotlight on measures related to cybersecurity

With the pandemic making the consumers more comfortable with working, buying, and being online, the tourism businesses will also have to make major shifts towards digitalization. As such, payment processing systems, reservation apps, and loyalty programs connected to digital platforms and digital corporate networks will increase the likelihood of attacks.

Therefore, the tourism sector will focus more on strengthening the cybersecurity measures after the pandemic. Enhanced cybersecurity is required to deal with emerging data breaches and fraudulency and also to make the adoption of new technologies easier. In addition, several job roles in the sector might make a shift to remote work, and as such, more robust security measures will be needed to make that transition smooth.

  1. Focus on implementing and highlighting the prescribed health and safety standards

According to 69% of travelers, cleanliness is a critical component of a travel brand’s crisis response, which is also one of the proofs that safety and health are paramount in the new era. Thus, it is important to keep in mind that even post-pandemic, personal experiences, the dread of being stuck in another region, and concerns about social distancing will continue to guide consumer behavior in both short and mid-term.

As a result, businesses will continue to collaborate more closely with the extended value chains, including suppliers and employees, to make sure of the readiness and implementation of the safety protocols. Also, since the trust between businesses and tourists will be a crucial factor in the recovery of the sector, the sector will keenly focus on promoting the safety measures undertaken.

  1. Enriching the talent pool to have a more multi-skilled workforce

Of course, we cannot conclude this discussion without throwing some light on the post-pandemic world of jobs and careers in the tourism sector. The crisis has clearly outlined the requirement to have a technologically proficient and multi-skilled workforce. Furthermore, the move to remote work has unlocked the potential to hire talent from all parts of the world.

Businesses are thus more likely to target a diverse skillset among the employees to plan for workforce continuity and reallocation of future stocks. They would preferably invest in cross-training their employees in multiple topics and digitally upskilling the workforce, along with recruiting tech-savvy talents across job roles.

All in all, there is no denying that the world of tourism is going to witness a sea change in the post-pandemic era. And we, at Avlon Shiksha Niketan, as one of the best tourism management institutes in Kolkata, are right here to prepare you well for the new and improved world of tourism jobs. Our teaching methodology has always focused on real-world approaches and keeping up with the trends, and these are the aspects that make our young professionals stand out today and tomorrow.

So, if you are planning to launch a glorious career in the field of travel and tourism, join us at Avlon Shiksha Niketan and get going for your future role in full swing.