Persuading tourists to use fewer natural resources when on holidays
This ARC Discovery project is motivated by the urgent need to improve the environmental performance of tourism accommodation businesses. The aim of the research is to work with a diverse range of accommodation providers to achieve reductions in resource use to mainstream tourism. This will be achieved using an experimental design to test the efficacy of combining smart technology and interpersonal communication into a smartservice intervention to change guest and staff resource use. The project challenges the view that pro-environmental attitudes are a pre-requisite for pro-environmental behaviours, and in doing so promotes redesigning social practices in accommodation to achieve greater sustainability outcomes and guest experiences.
ARC grant number DP200100972
The Project Team
Professor Susanne Becken
Professor of Sustainable Tourism, Griffith Institute for Tourism
A/Prof Alexandra Coghlan
Associate Professor, Griffith Institute for Tourism
Dr Stefen MacAskill
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Griffith Institute for Tourism
Professor Xavier Font
Professor of Sustainability Marketing, University of Surrey
Case Studies
Daintree Wilderness Lodge
Our newest addition to the research project, the Daintree Wilderness Lodge represents a fantastic eco-lodge nestled in the rainforest to test our research hypotheses. Located in a World Heritage Area, the Lodge and its guests place a high value on the pristine wilderness that surrounds it. Yet its location to the north of the Daintree River, 2h drive from the closest town (Cairns), and deep in the rainforest, presents the perfect challenge for smart metering and technology-enabled resource conservation.
The Lodge consists of 7 self-contained wooden cabins (with air-conditioning), a restaurant and plunge pool, and is supplied by a mix of bore water, solar power and generator (no mains power or water) and gas. Guests are encouraged to get back to nature, and My Green Butler allows us, the staff and the guests to track how much hot and cold water as well as energy is being used in each cabin. A likely area for intervention will be the use of air conditioning.
Amora Hotels Sydney
The Amora Hotel Jamison is the perfect site to test what resource conservation looks like in a large, five-star, metropolitan hotel. Situated in the heart of Sydney, Australia, the hotel has 37 floors, 415 rooms, function spaces, restaurant and bar, day spa and indoor heated swimming pool (all air-conditioned). In 2018, Amore Hotel Jamison partnered up with the City of Sydney’s Sustainable Destination Partnership to reach the Paris Agreement’s Goals, and they are currently monitoring energy and water at the level of the hotel. Guests access the hotel’s daily performance on a TV screen in each room.
Through partnering with the Amora, we are able to look at sites with large management teams, significant infrastructure for gas, water, and energy, and where resource feedback occurs at a collective level, with a mix of leisure and business travellers from across the globe. Challenges associated with pumping water to top floors, maintaining even pressure in pipes, and managing indoor temperature across floors and service areas in a large building will form part of this case study.
Langdale
Also situated in a World Heritage Site of the Lake District in the UK, Langdale provides a great contrast to the Daintree Wilderness Lodge, both in size and climate (cool temperate). Langdale has 80 lodges (which can each sleep 6 guests), a luxury hotel and country club, spread across 35 acres of land. Each lodge has its own sauna and drying cabinet (for wet clothes after a hike in the national park), and there is a pool, spa, restaurant and bar onsite, as well as several meeting rooms.
Our project focuses on the lodges, which have a timeshare feature, offering another angle to the research, as guests are repeat visitors, very familiar with the site and invested in its future. The lodges are managed through a corporate management team in coordination with time share committee. The smart meters monitor energy (from the grid as well as biomass heater), mains water and gas, and are placed in each lodge. Guests are able to access their daily resource through the My Green Butler app, which provides guest communication alongside other channels.
Jetty Road Retreat country house
The Country House Retreat is a family-run business, providing a perfect example of a busy site that faces the many challenges of small, owner-manager accommodation businesses. The Retreat is a fully self-contained vacation home (air-conditioned) that can sleep up to 10 guests in 4 bedrooms, and offers a fully equipped kitchen, hot tub and 2 bathrooms, laundry, wood burning stove and pizza oven.
It’s a great example of a rural retreat situated on acreage, within driving range of both Melbourne and Canberra in Australia, and has both solar power and grid power, as well as a rainwater tank. The guest group can access their daily resource use via the My Green Butler app.
Technical Project Partner WISE Sustainability
Project Outputs
Journal articles
- Modelling a smart tech user journey to decarbonise tourist accommodation (Journal of Sustainable Tourism)
- Knowledge alone won’t “fix it”: building regenerative literacy (Journal of Sustainable Tourism)
- Designing sustainability changes in a tourist accommodation context from a systems perspective (PDF, 1191 KB) (Frontiers in Sustainable Tourism, 2023)
- Engaging hotel guests to reduce energy and water consumption: A quantitative review of guest impact on resource use in tourist accommodation (PDF, 4325 KB) (Cleaner and Responsible Consumption, 2023)
Conference presentations
- Smart-service innovation: how we can be great hosts and conserve resources at the same time (PDF, 1586 kB) (CEP conference, 2021)
- The maturing research field of resource use in tourism (Resource use in Tourism (PDF, 1175 kB)) and video recording Presented by A/P Coghlan (CAUTHE, 2022)
- Building literacy to reduce tourism’s carbonfootprint - Presented at Upskilling Irish tourism for a decarbonised world, 2022 - (PDF, 977kB) - Videolink to event
- The individual in sustainability interventions: Is she or he worth the effort? - Presented by A/P Coghlan (ATLAS conference, 2023)
- Uncontrollable experiments and false negatives – the importance of researcher embeddedness in changing behaviours at tourist accommodation (PDF, 1139 KB) (3rd Critical tourism studies, 2023)
- Using feedback to influence human behaviour towards reducing resource use in the tourist accommodation sector (PDF 1713)(CRiT Summer school, 2022)
Other outputs
- Regenerative literacy can help build sustainable tourism (ENLIGHTEN: Ideas for a brighter future for all, 2022)
- Building regenerative literacy in tourism (PDF, 822 KB) (Summary document, 2024)
- Changing behaviour with smart technology (PDF 12,038 KB)
For further project information
Contact Professor Susanne Becken or Associate Professor Alexandra Coghlan