Green Stay Wellness Package for Sustainable Hospitality Overview The pressure on the hospitality sector to deliver guest

Green Stay Wellness Package for Sustainable Hospitality

The pressure on the hospitality sector to deliver guests experiences that are linked to sustainability, wellness and responsible consumption is rising. These days, travelers no longer just consider comfort and the cost of the stay, but also the environmental and social impact of their travel (Dolnicar & Otter, 2023). To meet the needs of this change, the Green Stay Regenerative Wellness Package is suggested as a new service offering for midscale and upscale hotels to differentiate in a competitive market.

Product Description

Green Stay" is an optional package of services that can be taken when booking or checking in. It is a way to add well-being to the typical hotel experience, while at the same time keeping an eye on sustainability. It also includes a local welcome amenity, a guided wellness and nature immersion activity, a verified carbon offset and an eco-friendly room kit, which removes all single use plastics (Uysal et al., 2022).

The premium version also incorporates farm to table credits, tailor-made wellness sessions and a digital sustainability report outlining the guest's footprint on the planet while staying. In this report, guests can gain insights on their actions of sustainability in energy and waste saving.

Where possible, all physical elements are purchased within around 200 kilometres of the hotel. This helps support local economies, decrease transportation emissions and improve supply chain transparency.

Product Life Cycle

Green Stay is in the introduction phase of the product life cycle. The intention at this stage is to create awareness, generate trials and early customer adoption (Kotler et al., 2022). Loyalty program users and eco-conscious tourists would be the focus of marketing campaigns, both digitally and in hotel promotions.

With the rise in adoption, the product is likely to enter the growth phase where demand grows and the emphasis is on service improvement. In order to ensure long-term success, they would have to keep innovating, listening to and learning from guests, and expanding partnerships with other natural and green businesses in the area.

New Product Development Process

The Green Stay development takes place following the new product development (NPD) process consisting of six steps.

Increasing demand for sustainable tourism and wellness focused travel experiences was a driver for idea generation. Feedback from guests and the industry reports indicate that the interest in environmentally responsible hospitality is constantly increasing.

Idea screening involved feasibility, brand and market demands. The concept was chosen because of its good fit with the up-to-date reality of sustainability trends and the hotels' differentiation requirements.

Concept development includes a package tiers, package components and a guest flow of experiences. Concept Development included a description of package levels, services offered and guest experience flow. Initial feedback would be gathered from surveys and by testing loyalty members.

The Marketing Strategy Development targets environmental conscious tourists, wellness tourists and business tourists who are looking for meaningful trips. A promotional approach would highlight the health benefits to the individual and contribution to the environment.

Business analysis looks at investment requirements, partnering with suppliers and revenue to be generated from premium pricing. Although there is a cost involved with training, and the service integration, long term profitability is ensured through increased guest retention and willingness to pay.

Before going into full-scale commercialization, test marketing and commercialization would start with a pilot in one or two hotel locations. Guests' satisfaction, occupancy impact and sustainability measures would be used to assess the performance.

Competitive Advantage and Feasibility

Green Stay differentiates, makes it authentic, and is engaging to guests, which is creating a competitive edge for the organization. This service is not a typical hotel sustainability initiative, which favour a kind of passive environmental stewardship, but one aimed at truly engaging the guests in reducing the environmental footprint and promoting their health and wellbeing.

Data indicates that there is a significant number of travellers willing to pay for sustainable accommodation choices and more than 50% say they prefer it if it has valid environmental initiatives in place (Booking.com, 2023). Certification by recognized schemes like Green Key or EarthCheck can boost credibility and minimize the possibility of greenwashing perceptions.

The service is also very feasible because the majority of hotels already have the facilities required to supply wellness services, e-booking systems as well as provider connections. This helps to minimise implementation difficulties and enables the gradual rollout to be planned to manage risk.

Booking.com. (2023). Sustainable travel report 2023. https://www.gstc.org/booking-com-2023-sustainable-travel-report/

Dolnicar, S., & Otter, T. (2023). Which hotel attributes matter to guests? Annals of Tourism Research, 99, 103547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2023.103547

Kotler, P., Keller, K. L., & Chernev, A. (2022). Marketing management (16th ed.). Pearson Education.

Uysal, M., Sirgy, M. J., Woo, E., & Kim, H. L. (2022). Quality of life and well-being research in tourism. Tourism Management, 93, 104623. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2022.104623