An article about ecotourism published on a hotel booking website’s newsletter made me think again about the dilemma shared by eco and responsible travel operators: when will our efforts be rewarded with a decent share of the huge travel industry’s profits?

The author says we are all interested in green issues, but when it comes to taking action in the preservation of the environment we all think we should be granted an exemption. He detected an increase in bookings for luxury resorts with little or no interest from his customers for ‘green travel’ options coming from an eco-friendly website he partnered with.

There is no doubt that peoples’ statements are often inconsistent with their behaviour and that eco-travel is still considered a niche market, however, ecotourism has been consistently growing between 20% and 34% a year from its beginnings in the 90s, and the 2004 figures showed a growth which was 3 times faster than the tourism industry as a whole.

The eco-friendly website Mr. Gezik mentions in his article is gloCaltravel. I approached him a few years ago as I was looking for a technology provider and he decided to cooperate with us. He shared our hopes of a concrete business opportunity following the increase of the eco-travel demand. We had the same business background (I had worked as a manager for an online travel agency) and thought that successful business models could be easily applied to different market segments.

As it turned out, we were totally wrong, and I had to learn at my expense that the ecotourism industry has its own rules, characteristics and rhythms.
I understood I had to change my approach to the operations management, revaluating the personal relationships with our clients who wanted to be told the stories behind the product, and to hear how their holiday would make a difference.

I decided to bin models involving instant reservations and credit card bookings (which was very hard for me, considering I live in symbiosis with my laptop and love to sort out my information, shopping and entertainment with a couple of clicks). I chose to forget about easy and immediate profits, instead investing in longer term projects, taking small steps and never losing sight of the company’s mission and philosophy. Eco-travelers can be very inquisitive and demanding, and considering the many operators who jump on the eco band wagon for mere marketing purposes, they have the right to be suspicious.

I believe this is the right way to get interest, then positive feedback, then trust from your visitors, who eventually become regular clients and effective advertisers through word of mouth marketing.
But slow progress is not often appreciated and it takes a lot of patience and passion to keep going. Many travel operators do not have time to email clients back and forth providing personalized information or to double check the eco-policies of every single supplier. And how about being ready to offer assistance to accommodation/tour providers located in developing countries, who often are not used to email reservations, extranets, online payments, or any other e-commerce tools?

Promoting hotels run by staff who are familiar with online availability and instant reservations is definitely less time consuming, and more profitable.

I am still far from seeing rapid economic returns… a few years ago in Mexico City I met Verena Gerber, director of Ecoparaiso Xixim, an eco-lodge you will be able to find easily all over the Internet. She told me I had chosen a very bad industry if I was interested in making money. I said profits were not at the base of my motivation, but I firmly believed the eco-travel community would continue growing. Today there are many successful companies amongst those who managed to stick to their eco-policies and Verena has done a fantastic job herself in promoting what is now one of the best known eco-resorts in Mexico.

Even though I understand Mr. Gezik’s disappointment; with a healthy dose of optimism and the knowledge there are others out there who are not in this game just to make quick money, I can not share his views with regards the lack of potential for ecotourism.

There will always be people looking for boasts of luxury and artificial paradises, which will always be easy to sell (see the rapid growth of Dubai), but many customers will be willing to listen to alternative proposals, and I think operators should try a bit harder to diversify their offers.

And then who said that ecotourism must be synonymous with a lack of comfort and facilities and can not include some responsible and sustainable luxury? But this is another issue which deserves a separate discussion…

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 10th, 2007 at 6:26 pm and is filed under ecotourism, gloCaltravelling. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.