Sustainable consumer products company Grove Collaborative has launched a new partnership pilot with hotel management company Crescent Hotels & Resorts. The two brands are working together to develop the Beyond Plastic Stay program at a number of properties across the U.S., meeting growing demand from eco-conscious travelers who want to reduce the environmental impact of both business and personal travel.
Camille Garcia, Crescent's corporate director of marketing, told Hotel Management the partnership developed "out of a need to educate guests about the sustainable products available today while supporting Crescent Hotels & Resorts' efforts to make the hospitality industry more sustainable—starting with their own managed properties."
Guests at participating hotels will be able to select the Beyond Plastic Stay as an option when reserving a room across all booking platforms, similar to selecting a King Size or Double Queen room, starting at a $50 premium. When they select that option, they will get additional information explaining the stay and the partnership. Once the stay is booked, guests will encounter more "educational touchpoints" in the email confirmation, email reminder, at check-in and in the room to continue learning about sustainable products and "sustainable swaps" they can implement at home.
Individual rooms have been updated at participating Crescent Hotels & Resorts locations with sustainable products to reduce the environmental impact of a hotel stay. At the same time, back-of-house and public spaces will also have sustainable products for cleaning and for guest purchases. These include:
By using refill systems and products that opt for more sustainable packaging materials than single-use plastic, each guest that opts into the Beyond Plastic Stay saves approximately 50 standard-sized water bottles worth of single-use plastic (based on the standard weight of 16.9 oz. single-use plastic water bottles). To calculate how much plastic a product can avoid, Grove finds the difference between the amount of plastic in the leading packaging format of a conventional, single-use plastic product of equal size or number of uses and the amount of plastic in a reduced-plastic product purchased from Grove.
In the room, guests can learn more about the sustainable products by scanning QR codes. When they check out, guests will get a follow-up email recapping their stay and showcasing the product assortment from their experience.
Properties participating in the pilot program include:
Garcia cited studies that suggest Americans are increasingly aware of the environmental impact of their actions and the general state of pollution, especially as it relates to plastic:
As such, consumers are increasingly choosing sustainable products at home and seek out similar products when traveling. However, the nature of tourism operations, the scale needed for high-turnover guestrooms and general consumer expectations and behaviors around hospitality creates challenges for hoteliers looking to meet these demands, especially as it relates to single-use plastic waste.