It’s without doubt that sustainability in holiday parks has been an ever-increasing issue that park operators have to face. Holiday Parks often boast large open green space, many in enviable coastal and country locations and the need to blend these family friendly spaces with sustainable, habitable environments that also actively encourage wildlife, flora and fauna needs careful balance.
The BH&HPA David Bellamy Awards celebrate parks that actively contribute to sustainable practice and protect and nurture our environment and the guidance that their knowledgeable assessors provide can be invaluable for operators. We advise those holiday parks and campsites seeking to embark or enhance their sustainability to reach out to organisations like this to properly plan and build sustainable practices into their everyday activities.
Commercial awareness for sustainable brands has never been higher. Global leaders across all industries face increasing backlash and pressure to reduce carbon, eliminate plastic and invest in social, economic and environmental schemes, whilst at the same time maintaining product integrity and value for money. Millennials in particular now rate sustainability as high to very high in their decision to purchase.
We are consumers at heart and with investment of our hard-earned salaries comes a decision and belief that this product, service or in our case holiday is going to deliver what that product should. As a human race generally speaking, we lack the compromise needed to be fully sustainable when it comes to our buying choices.
So, where do we go from here? We demand amazing holidays yet environmentally and socially responsible all at the same time, oh and at a great price too! With all this mash of messages, how can we communicate all this to our guests and consumers.
Firstly, we will look at how TUI present sustainability strategy to their employment network and corporate investors…
What we see is a very clear statement of intent across 3 core areas of sustainable strategy:
With those messages in mind, now let’s see how they communicate these messages to their consumers…
TUI has subtly blend these messages and actions into a first-person perspective a holiday. We get introduced to their efforts around carbon reduction across their planes and travel (note the several clips of cycling also to emphasise this). We see their commitment to local produce and suppliers, their economic sustainability practice and finally, their investment in the TUI Foundation to help employ communities and train them to protect, their social sustainability efforts.
What we see from a consumer’s perspective though, is the addition and lead of one key holiday marketing ingredient – Fun and Experience! Above all else that is what consumers buy into when making their holiday and travel decisions.
The decision to purchase a holiday comes down to one of trust, other obvious factors play a part, location, value for money, facilities etc. But trust above all in that the holiday we are purchasing will deliver amazing memories and experiences that allow us to escape from the daily grind.
Now, we can’t just cease our promotional activity, offers and deals and start solely talking about sustainability, unfortunately I fear your booking revenue would decline. But what we can do is at least start talking about it. For many holiday park operators their sustainable activities will never actually be experienced by consumers until they arrive on holiday, this however does not allow consumers to form a balanced purchasing choice prior to booking and you could be missing out on a whole new audience.
Sustainability practices never cease, and marketing is also a never-ending process. The need to fill our parks season after season requires a big marketing commitment and regular communication. So, with sustainability never ending we always have something to talk about!
Check out our ‘how to market your holiday park sustainability’ blog for more information on implementing sustainability into your marketing plan and generating more bookings and holiday home sales.
