Innovative My Green Butler project acknowledged by United Nations World Tourism Organisation
The My Green Butler project has been acknowledged by the UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organisation) as a worthy sustainable tourism project and has been featured in their annual magazine. Ecotourism Australia has been supporting the project and is happy to celebrate its success.
Developed and partented by Ecotourism Australia member Crystal Creek Meadows in Kangaroo Valley, New South Wales, My Green Butler is a digital advisory service that pulls together metered data on resource use, staff engagement through tailored professional development training, and guest participation to encourage more responsible tourism. The project aims to:
- reduce tourist resource use and carbon footprint
- increase tourism’s positive community impacts
- increase visitor satisfaction, increase service quality standards
- identify saving opportunities from analytics and to promote nature and wildlife conservation
Guests are essential partners to help tourist accommodations to become more sustainable. If businesses are to achieve net zero carbon emissions they must encourage larger guest participation to reduce emissions, whilst providing hospitality quality and customer satisfaction. My Green Butler offers a way to tackle this challenge and to promote sustainable tourism.
My Green Butler uses a mixed method approach incorporating smart metering, big data, quantitative surveys and action research with direct interaction with professionally trained staff to promote and educate guests on what they can do to help achieve responsible, sustainable tourism. The information collected provides participating businesses with a greater understanding of resource saving opportunities, guest participation motivations, and impacts on guest satisfaction.
Over a 17-month trial on a selection of tourism accommodations, it was found that the program encouraged savings of 34% in electricity, 21% in water and 20% in gas. Furthermore, financial savings were redirected for use in support for nature and wildlife conservation - directly supporting the care of orphaned wombats, and the protection of threatened Brush-Tailed Rock-Wallabies. The innovation was a success with guests, with 74% of guests saying it added to their experience.
If you are interested in getting involved with My Green Butler, or would like to hear more about it, then head to My Green Butler website.
photo credit: https://mygreenbutler.com/