SINGAPORE—Agoda.com, one of Asia’s leading hotel booking sites and part of Nasdaq-listed Priceline Group, announced the results of their Global Earth Day Hotels Survey, which shows that while most travelers like environmentally friendly hotels, they don’t want to pay much more to stay in them.
The survey, conducted online in March, 2014, asked 57,000 Agoda.com customers how they felt about environmental efforts by hotels. While 58 percent of all travelers said they preferred hotels that claimed to be environmentally friendly, only 39 percent said they would pay an extra $10 or more per night to stay in one.
Travelers from the Netherlands, Denmark and the United Kingdom cared the least about eco-friendly hotels*. Only 35 percent of Danish and Dutch travelers and only 38 percent of U.K. travelers said they preferred them. They were among the least likely to want to shell out more cash, too, with 57 percent, 47 percent and 47 percent respectively saying they would not pay anything extra to stay in a green hotel.
Chinese Strongly Support Green Hotels
The biggest fans of green hotels were travelers from China. An impressive 79 percent said they were more likely to stay in eco-friendly hotels. When it came to opening their wallets, though, they were a little less enthusiastic. Only 22 percent said they would pay $10 or more per night to stay in a green hotel.
When asked which environmentally-friendly hotel practices they liked the most, travelers picked use of environmentally-friendly cleaning products and recycling as their favorites, each taking about 37 percent of the total votes cast (respondents were allowed to select as many as they wanted from a list of eight common practices). The least popular was reusing towels and sheets, which got only 23 percent of the votes.
The most important green business practices included:
• Use of environmentally friendly cleaning products, 37.3 percent;
• Recycling, 36.8 percent;
• Environmentally conscious construction and design, 36.1 percent;
• Waste reduction, 35.7 percent;
• Pollution prevention or reduction, 32 percent;
• Conservation of water, 25.4 percent;
• Conservation of electricity, 24.9 percent;
• Reuse of towels/sheets, 23.1 percent.
*Of countries with 100 or more respondents.
For more information on the survey, e-mail pr@agoda.com.
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