Engaging Hotel Guests in Sustainable Activities

Abstract:

In contemporary times, sustainable tourism has gained an enormous interest from many stakeholders, e.g. customers, top management, employees, and authorities, and to implement green practices has become a way for many hotels to show that they care about the environment. Demonstrating eco-friendliness can help hotels develop a competitive advantage, a crucial aspect explored in business dissertation help. However, to gain and sustain a competitive advantage each hotel must build capabilities that differentiate the hotel from its competitors. The aim of this paper is to is to add to the understanding of ways to engage a specific stakeholder type, i.e. hotel guests, in sustainable activities, and to relate sustainable activities to the concept ‘competitive advantage’. In the last ten years, it has become popular for hotels in more countries to undertake beekeeping, e.g. with beehives on the hotel’s rooftop, as a way to support the environment as well as a way to differentiate the hotel from its competitors and engage the hotel guests. We report from an in-depth qualitative single case study of a hotel that has started to undertake beekeeping and related activities, e.g. prompting and educating the hotel guests to focus on bees and to use bee products after the hotel visit. We discuss how the hotel can engage with the stakeholders and benefit from beekeeping, as well as whether it can give the hotel a competitive advantage. We conclude that beekeeping is a way to make the hotel become attractive for environmentally conscious customers, not least families with children (as well as employees). However, due to the fact that beekeeping is easy for competitors to copy, the activity cannot be categorized as a competitive advantage. Instead, it might develop into a standard, like e.g. the commitment to a towel and sheet reusing policy, which has now become commonplace in most hotels instead of a feature to differentiate.

Introduction

There are many ways in which hotels can maintain sustainability (i.e. sustainable tourism). While the most common ways include investing in rainwater harvesting and asking guests not to wash their towels every night, some hotels have realized that beekeeping in rooftops and flower beds are just another option of hotel eco-friendliness which may prove to be more beneficial. While beekeeping is not new to the hotel industry, the past three years have been characterised by an increasing trend of hotels such as InterContinental Hotel, Mandarin Hotel, and Fairmont Hotel, just to mention a few engaging in beekeeping. As the trend of beekeeping continues to gain popularity among hotels, it is important to track the activity of hotel beekeeping and its related benefits especially in the context of competitive advantage. This paper seeks to understand the practice of beekeeping as a sustainability measure by hotels. In doing so, it will highlight some of the guest related activities that beekeeping involves, and how these activities are practiced by hotels. Secondly, the paper will explore the prevalence of beekeeping in hotels, and whether there are some big hotels that engage in the activity. Lastly, the paper will evaluate the role of beekeeping in helping hotels to gain a competitive advantage.

The basic reward for beekeeping is honey. According to Palmer (2017), honey is a well-known product with several benefits that hotels can take advantage of to offer quality food and beverage services to their guests. It is an important source of flavour to the food that hotels prepare for their guests for example, honey is used or tea sweetening and baking. Hence, hotels take advantage of the honey they produce on the rooftop to prepare food and beverages with the flavour of honey. This leads to a constant production of spiced drinks and beverages for customers. Mest (2016) also claims that one out of three mouthfuls of peoples’ diet has directly or indirectly benefited from bee-enabled pollination. Hence, hotels that serve food and beverages have a great interest in honey and beekeeping especially now that customers are becoming more concerned about the source of their food and the how organic the food is.

Honey also has several health benefits that hotels take advantage of to engage in guest relations and ensure their guests encounter a healthy experience during their stay at the hotel. For instance, according to Brophy (2015), the honey produced at the rooftop of hotels is used as a natural antibiotic for emergency purposes when guests develop wounds and or experience small cuts. It increases wound healing and this forms part of guest relations in most hotels that engage in beekeeping (Fritsch & Johannsen, 2015).

Hotel beautification is part of guest relations. According to Price (2017), most hotels use flowers to keep a good look at the hotel environment. However, the flower plants need constant pollination in order to produce flowers. In this regard, the bees kept at the rooftop of hotels play an important role in pollinating these flowers to create a beautiful hotel environment. Similarly, studies conducted by McCracken (2016) reveal that since 2008, the beekeeping sustainability program at Fairmont Hotel has reared “pollinator bees” which are largely responsible for the pollination of flowering plants. At Fairmont, says McCracken (2016), beekeeping helps give the property a unique look by constantly pollinating flowering plants. Therefore, beekeeping helps to pollinate nearby flowers, which are an essential part of guest relations because flowers improve the general look and impression of the hotel environment.

Some hotels have reported that the beehives also attract the curiosity of guests who in turn want to be taken for a tour of the beehives. For example, McCracken’s (2016) interaction with officials at the Fairmont Hotel in the USA reveal that guests often ask to see the beehives out of curiosity, this helps increase value delivery to guests. It also helps in to educate guests and provide information on the importance of beekeeping as well as the health benefits of honey. Miller (2017) also interacted with an hotelier from Miraval Resort & Spa who noted that more often than not, he educates guests about the importance of bees in the ecosystem.

Hotels in America have also devised various products and services related to honey and beekeeping in order to provide a remarkable customer experience for their guests during their stay at the Hotel. For example, The Carmel Valley Hotel in America offers beekeeping experiences for their guests a service that costs $75 and includes activities such as honey harvesting and bee feeding while guests at Calistoga Ranch Hotel in Northern California offers honey infused Spar and honey made dishes at a cost of $280 (Straaten, 2017).

However, Most of the hotels take safety precautions to ensure that guests are not harmed by the bees. For example, at Fairmont, guest sign a waiver before they are going to the rooftop to watch the bees so that the hotel is relieved of any liability in case of any danger (McCracken, 2016). Other hotels also keep the beehives at a position that is viewable from a distance so that guests do not have to draw near while watching them.

Hotels that keep honey also prefer to use honey was in the production of candles used in setting dinner tables for their guests. According to Price (2017), guests on private functions and dinner events prefer candles to be lit on the tables and therefore even if the candles are not directly made from the honey wax they produce, they appreciate the fact that the candles are made out of resources from beekeeping. Beeswax is especially advantageous in the production of candles because when lit, they clean the hair by producing negative irons as opposed to candles made from paraffin which produce carcinogen (Aslam et al, 2016).

The Prevalence of Hotel Beekeeping

The practice of hotel beekeeping has been on for the last ten years although earlier on it was majorly practiced by restaurants and hotels in the rural areas (Bischoff, 2018). However, upon discovering the benefits of beekeeping and the possibility of practicing it in rooftops, hotels such as the Fairmont Hotel today practices beekeeping in 20 of their properties worldwide. According to Straaten (2017), the Fairmont Hotel’s venturing into rooftop beekeeping in 2008 seemed to have marked the beginning of city beekeeping with several other hotels and restaurants engaging in the same thereafter. The beekeeping program by Fairmont hotel was launched based on the idea that it could reduce the disappearance of bees (i.e. colony collapse disorder) as well as lead to a constant supply of honey for the hotel’s catering, bar and spa departments (Locker, 2015). The hotel keeps bees in its properties in Kenya, Washington D.C, Newport Beach, and Vancouver among other among other properties worldwide.

Today, many hotels have adopted the idea and are into rooftop beekeeping for both economic and sustainability purposes. For example, in New York, the famous Waldorf-Astoria Hotel has been engaging in rooftop beekeeping since the year 2010 (Locker, 2015). Whereas earlier on the City’s authority had banned beekeeping within New York, the lifting of the ban in 2012 so a mass production of honey by Astoria hotel (120 pounds) especially due to the property’s close proximity to the green Central Park. Straaten (2017) also observes that the Hotel InterContinental situated at Times square also keeps thousands of bees in its rooftop which acts as an attraction for the tourists who visit Times Square and a source of honey for the hotel. Thus, hotel beekeeping emerges to be a common practice even in the world’s largest cities such a New York.

Hotel beekeeping is also practiced by some hotels in London. For instance, St. Ermin Hotel in London despite having only 331 hotel rooms rears up to 300,000 bees at its rooftop (Straaten, 2017). The hotel uses the beehives as sources of honey and food flavour for hotel guests including the famous ‘St. Ermin’s afternoon tea’ comprising of honeycomb cakes and brownies.

Taipei City is also not left out in the list of cities with hotels that engage in beekeeping. The Hotel W Taipei launched their rooftop beekeeping program in December 2014 for purposes of honey harvesting which are then used in the preparation of special dishes such as ‘bee’s knees’ and cheesecakes (Locker, 2015). Part of the honey yield at W Taipei Hotel is donated to a local foundation.

In Paris, the Mandarin Oriental Hotel keeps bees but uses it for a unique purpose. According to Locker (2015), the hotel rewards every guest who does not use fresh linens or towels every day with a jar of honey harvested from its rooftop beehive which has been in the position since 2012. Beekeeping in hotels also proves to be common considering that even the famous Palais Garnier hotel engages in rooftop beekeeping for a period of almost half a century.

Apart from these pieces of evidence revealing the prevalence of hotel beekeeping all over the world, statistics stated by Moon (2014) reveal that out of 55 hotels found to be practicing rooftop beekeeping, 66% of them were had been engaging in beekeeping in the past three years. Moreover, Moon (2014) indicates that the largest beehive is kept by the famously tall Inn & Courtyard by Marriott Hotel New York. Hence, beekeeping emerges to be a common practice among hotels globally.

How Beekeeping Contributes To Hotel Competitive Advantage

In the past few years, engaging in beekeeping as a sustainability strategy has caught the attention of many hotels. Sustainability as a concept behind beekeeping in hotels has been a major issue of debate within government, corporate and environmental circles due to the manner in which it affects the business, social and environmental atmosphere of the hotel business. For example, Earnest & Young and Greebiz (2012) argue that sustainability has been a disciplined and complex affair mainly aimed at taking care of the needs of stakeholders. Hence, many hotels have adopted beekeeping as a sustainability plan for competitive advantage purposes. Against this background, it is important to evaluate whether engaging in beekeeping has created a competitive advantage for hotels. In this section of the paper, we attempt to examine the link between beekeeping and competitive advantage. Using a case study of Novotel hotel’s beekeeping program, there will be a detailed analysis of beekeeping as a competitive advantage strategy for hotels, thereby answering the question: How can beekeeping help hotels gain a competitive advantage?

The Concept of Competitive Advantage

Amsker (2009) argues that competitive advantage denotes the manner in which an organization is able to create value for its customers, and the value must be higher than the cost involved in creating it. In the context of hotel beekeeping, it means that for a hotel to create competitive advantage out of beekeeping, the products and benefits it gains from the beehives and channels to customers must be of a higher value than the costs involved in keeping the bees. Nonetheless, according to Guo (2007), in order to gain competitive advantage (CA), they need to have a critical understanding and knowledge in the level of competition and the changing needs of their customers. Moreover, it also involves the development of new ideas, resources, and activities to meet the scarcity of resources (Barter 2011).

Ideally, according to Burn (2008), a competitive advantage in the hotel industry defines how a hotel has an advantage over the other hotels within a particular geographical market area. Equally, it is the resources and features possessed by one hotel and that the other hotel does not have, thereby making the hotel have a more competitive advantage than the other. Best (2012) also defines it as the attributes that a hotel can deliver over its competitors, and it can be a product, service or an innovation that positively differentiates one hotel from the rest.

Engaging in sustainability activities such as beekeeping as a competitive advantage activity describes a hotel’s ability to create a long-term success in the market through a constant flow of honey as a resource. According to Bowen (2003), sustainability involves the continued production and protection of resources in the future to enable the organization to maintain its competitiveness in the market. However, Chen et al (2009) argue that there is a complex relationship between competitive advantage and sustainability programs such as beekeeping and that this relationship can be economic, social, or environmental. Nonetheless, the link between beekeeping as a sustainability program by hotels and competitive advantage can be explained through the stakeholder theory.

The Stakeholder Theory

The stakeholder theory has largely been used by scholars to conceptualize sustainability programs carried out by hotels. Ideally, the theory holds that hotels should be sensitive to the needs and welfare of their stakeholders who include customers, shareholders, the government, and employees among others. When they do so, they are more likely to be successful. Coined by Milton Friedman, believers in this theory argue that in a free market, organizations’ main objective is to make profits for its owners or shareholders, and therefore all its activities are aimed at increasing profits (Delloitte, 2012). Equally, according to Diesendorf (2000), the theory assumes that firms owe no real social responsibility to the public but rather, their main concern is to make profits for shareholders.

In this section, we draw on the work of Milton Friedman to make an argument that hotel beekeeping as a sustainability program plays an instrumental role in developing a competitive advantage for hotels like Novotel hotel. Friedman’s emphasis on sustainability programs as creators of profitability benefits to shareholders or owners of firms is especially useful in the analysis of hotel beekeeping as it allows us to think through ways in which beekeeping can create a competitive advantage for hotels, thereby maximizing profitability for the hotel owners or shareholders. To this end, Friedman’s conceptualization of firms having no real social responsibility to shareholders but rather their main concern is to generate profits for shareholders is generative in grasping how Novotel hotel uses beekeeping as a tool for maximizing profits by reducing costs and conserving resources (i.e. honey) for long-term competitive advantage.

Novotel’s Rooftop Beekeeping

Novotel Hotel’s engagement in rooftop beekeeping is part of a sustainability program rolled out by the Accor Hotels Group which consists of other hotels such as Fairmont, Ibis, and Sofitel among others. According to Accorhotels official website, beekeeping is part of fulfilling the requirements of a healthy and sustainable food charter which entails a collection of other commitments by the Group to offer value to its customers through responsibly produced and high-quality food products (Garvare & Johnson, 2010).

Particularly, beekeeping is practiced to a larger scale by Novotel Queenstown Lakeside Hotel. According to Otago Daily Times (2013), the hotel has several beehives from which honey is harvested on a periodical basis. It is part of the sustainable hospitality projects run by the Accor Hotels Group and has various competitive advantages to the hotel as explained in the following section of the paper:

Firstly, to be competitive, hotels have to be innovative and above their competitors in controlling pollution and reducing the environmental impacts of their activities. By engaging in rooftop beekeeping, Novotel hotel is able to minimize the environmental impacts of processing honey in factories because their honey is produced directly from the beehives (Garvare & Johansson, 2010). The naturally produced honey has low environmental impacts, thereby making the hotel to create social value and gain a competitive advantage over its competitors.

Hotels may always find a difficulty in differentiating between what should do to maximize profits and what is the correct thing to do. Hence, by engaging in beekeeping, Novotel is able to achieve its profitability objectives through cheap honey production while reducing the anxiety of doing the right thing to maximize profits. According to Papmehl (2005), this reduces people’s anxiety and contributes to customer satisfaction, which is an important element of competitive advantage.

Novotel hotel also achieves competitive advantage from beekeeping through differentiation and cost leadership. According to Goldstein & Primlani (2012), cost leadership entails the acquisition of resources at low costs while maintaining fewer materials spills. On the other hand, differentiation involves being innovative enough to produce products that are different from the competitor’s products.

In regards to differentiation, Novotel hotel can gain competitive advantage from beekeeping by using honey from their rooftop beehive to produce honey-flavoured food products. As mentioned earlier, honey is a preferred natural food flavour used in baking and preparing beverages served to guests. According to Hamilton (2009), some hotel customers prefer naturally flavoured food and therefore would prefer the Novotel Hotel which serves such kind of food, to another hotel that does not serve honey flavoured food. Heardable (2012) argue that differentiation as a source of competitive advantage is based on the delivery system of the products, the product itself and the way the product is marketed. Therefore, Novotel can gain a competitive advantage from beekeeping by serving honey-flavoured food and beverages as well as by marketing itself as a hotel which serves honey-flavoured food and beverages.

Novotel can also use honey from their beehive to improve their customer service thereby gaining a competitive advantage. While previously hotels were not keenly engaged in using innovative and sustainability strategies to improve customer services, this has rapidly changed because more hotels have realized that offering quality services plays an important role in differentiating themselves from competitors and gaining a competitive advantage over them (Hilton, 2012). By delivering quality food made of naturally produced resources such as honey, Novotel hotel increases the value of its delivery system thereby creating more customer satisfaction. Engaging in an in-house production of honey demonstrates that the hotel pays attention to the service delivery and having a control over the quality of their food and beverages. According to Holcomb et al (2007), this ensures that customers are satisfied through a well-controlled quality of services delivered.

When the service delivery system is improved, the customers are able to encounter quality services that meet and exceed their expectations. According to Holcomb et al (2007), it is a common phenomenon in the hotel industry that when customer satisfaction leads to customer retention, which in turn leads to profitability and competitiveness. Therefore, beekeeping helps to create a competitive advantage for Novotel hotel by promoting customer loyalty, retention and satisfaction.

Moreover, internationally operating hotel brands like Accor hotel group (Novotel hotel being a member) are aiming for a competitive advantage which puts them in the global arena and therefore engaging in sustainability activities such as beekeeping depicts them as responsible organizations with a capacity to create a long-term value for their customers. According to InterContinental Hotels Group (2012), these interests are reinforced by various sustainability awards (e.g. the green sustainable hotel awards) sought by hotels in the global hospitality industry. Moreover, according to Hotel Analyst (2012), engaging in beekeeping as a sustainability program situates the AccorHotels as a part of the financial markets indexes, enabling them to acquire investors. Consequently, they are able to make better profits.

In order to send realistic information to the public about their beekeeping practices as a sustainability program, Novotel must ensure that systems and are simplified and well developed through better decision-making processes and cost-effectiveness Hyatt (2012). This not only contributes to a better public image of the hotel but also enables the hotel to be at the forefront in terms of operational efficiency, thereby contributing to a competitive advantage. Moreover, efficient management practices are effective in creating a competitive advantage because ideally, adopting such sustainability strategies as beekeeping help in satisfying customer demands while maximizing profits (Iberostar, 2012).

In the past few years, the hotel industry has been transformed by the society’s demand policies that promote sustainable development. According to InterContinental Hotels Group (2012), the philosophy behind strategic sustainable development demands that hotels reconsider their profit maximization goals and instead look forward to corporate social responsibility. By engaging in beekeeping, the Novotel hotel ensures that their processes and operations are re-established, and during the reestablishment, it achieves effective economic results meant to improve the viability of the hotel’s business.

Beekeeping is part of the sustainability strategies that Novotel hotel engages in. through in-house honey production, it creates value and influences accounting indicators, and this has an impact on the company performance (Jackson, 2006). Moreover, engaging in beekeeping has a direct impact on the financial performance of the hotel due to the low-cost production of honey. A better financial performance creates a competitive advantage.

In the hotel industry, customers’ demand for more environmentally produced products creates more business opportunity, and hoteliers are constantly taking up these opportunities after realizing how important they are in creating competitive advantage. Unless other market forces intervene, other hotels will always take up these opportunities, leading to a stronger market. According to Jackson (2006), an efficient hotel market has a more rapid development and this is a strong force for hotels to seek opportunities for making increasing their competitive advantage.

To conclude, beekeeping creates a unique selling opportunity for hotels, and this involves letting the customers and other stakeholders know the products and services offered by the hotel. According to Hyatt (2012), letting the public know of the unique traits or values of the company is an effective tool for brand marketing and this creates an opportunity for them to have a stronger brand than their competitors (Hotel Analyst, 2012).

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