Australian Business Travellers - Not So Keen To Be Green (If It Costs) Despite Having Largest Travel Budgets in Asia Pacific

Business travel research highlights differences between corporate ‘road-warriors’ from eight Asia Pacific countries

Australia might portray itself internationally as a leader in environmental commitment, but a new business travel survey shows that if this translates into paying extra to stay in an environmentally-sensitive hotel, Australian corporate road-warriors appear to be more mean than green.

The Accor Asia Pacific Business Traveller Survey 2011 shows that out of the 10,437 respondents, Australian business travelers were the second least-inclined to pay more for a credentialed “green” hotel. This was despite the fact that Australians had the largest and least-restricted travel budgets in Asia Pacific.

The research, conducted by leading Asia Pacific research consultancy Cimigo Ltd, surveyed members of Accor’s A|Club loyalty programme from eight destinations: Australia, China, Hong Kong SAR, India, Indonesia, Singapore, New Zealand and Thailand. Accor is Australia’s largest hotel group with over 150 hotels under brands including Sofitel, Pullman, Novotel, Mercure, All Seasons and Ibis.

Highlights of the research findings include:

Australians more likely to be mean, than green – when asked whether they would choose a hotel above others simply because it was more environmentally conscious, Australian corporate travelers were the least likely to show their green colours, and only 38% of Australians said they would be prepared to pay more to stay at a conspicuously green hotel. This compares with 91% of Chinese, 67% of Indonesians and 62% of Indians. Females were by far more committed to the green cause than their male counterparts, with 42% of females (compared to 32% males) prepared to pay more.

Australians had the largest hotel travel allowance in the Asia Pacific region – Australians had an average of US$158 allowance to spend on their nightly accommodation, almost 20% higher than business travelers from any of the other seven countries surveyed. Travellers from Australia are also likely to have ‘no defined allowance’ for business travel.

Location and familiarity come well before price in determining choice of hotel – while location was the primary reason for travelers from all Asia Pacific countries selecting a hotel, Australians placed higher importance on location (56%) and familiarity with the hotel/brand well ahead of price.

Corporate travelers increasingly want ‘quality’ internet access above merely free internet access – internet access was high on the list of ‘preferred’ services for the overwhelming majority of respondents, but increasingly corporate travelers are seeking ‘quality’ download speeds rather than just free (slower) internet. They want to be able to work fast and efficiently, and many will pay a “reasonable” amount for the service. Others just want to answer emails and print out airline tickets, which is why a large number of Accor hotels have introduced free internet stations in the lobby areas

Technology is king for the ‘hotel of the future’ – at least for Australians. Online check-in and check-out were key demands of the ‘hotel of the future’ as far as Australian corporate travelers were concerned. Smartphone in-room access and online booking for hotel facilities were considered far more important than fully personalised services, which was a higher priority for most Asian business travelers

Australians less likely to work in hotel rooms during business trips – Where as 82% of Chinese and Singaporean corporate travelers will work in the hotel during their international business trips, only 72% of Australians said they worked at the hotel during trips. This is possibly because Australians are more likely to travel overseas for “conventions’ and “trade shows”, rather than the more direct sales missions undertaken by Chinese and Singaporeans.

Australian corporate travelers plan less business travel in the next 6 months – not surprisingly Chinese business travelers are way out in front in terms of projected business travel, where as Australian corporate travelers anticipate marginally less travel in the second half of 2011 compared to the first six months

The 21st century doesn’t seem to have changed the inequality between the sexes in terms of business travel – if there was one area of agreement across the eight countries surveyed it was that the boys club was alive and thriving in 2011. In each market, the majority of respondents were male, especially in India, where female business travellers were a significant minority. The discrepancy might be higher in Asia – eg 93% vs 7% male vs female in India – but Hong Kong and Thailand had the highest incidence of female business travelers, while there was a major imbalance in Australian corporate travelers: 71% males and just 29% females.

“While some of the results could have been predicted, there were other areas that showed marked differences in business travel habits and preferences depending on the respondent’s country of origin,” said Evan Lewis, Vice President Communications for Accor Asia Pacific.

“It would seem that most companies in most countries – apart from China – are cautious about business travel in the second half of the year, with no discernible rise in trips planned. Short-haul international trips such as intra-Asia or trans-Tasman were nominated as the most likely journeys.

“The survey found that business travelers in Asia Pacific were increasingly ‘environmentally aware’ but travelers from Asia were far more likely to put their money where their convictions were when it came to supporting environmentally-friendly hotels. This is possibly because in Asia environmental awareness is a newer phenomenon than in Australia, where the current carbon tax debate may have led to greater environmental apathy towards paying more for supporting green hotels. Having said that our Mercure hotels’ carbon-neutral conferencing has proved extremely popular, and the difference in the survey findings between Australia and Asia may be because travelers expect hotels to be environmentally conscious and don’t think they need to pay for that. Female travelers across the region were more environmentally driven than their male counterparts.

“The question of internet access remains a contentious one. Many hotels across the region now offer limited free internet access, which does satisfy the needs of a large number of travelers, but for corporate travellers who need to work in their rooms, prepare reports or presentations or download large attachments, the issue is more of speed and capacity. They are prepared to pay if the capacity is high and speed fast. The importance of the net is also being reflected in Australia with many companies now negotiating ‘bed and broadband’ deals in preference to ‘bed and breakfast’, though it would appear from our research that Asian business travelers believe they work harder while on the road than Australians.

“With over 10,000 respondents to the survey it was a surprise to find that business travel was still so comprehensively dominated by male road-warriors. Whether that has been exacerbated by the GFC is hard to know, but the discrepancy does not appear to have narrowed all that significantly in recent years, despite all the efforts made.”

Spreading The Word, Room By Room

HAD it not been for the Central Hotel in Boscobel in Wisconsin being over-booked one night in the American Autumn of 1898, the world would never have enjoyed the legacy of John H. Nicholson and Samuel E. Hill.

Nor probably have even heard of them.

But it was Messrs Nicholson and Hill who were the founding fathers of a movement that became known as the Gideons, an extraordinarily forward-thinking yet publicity-shy group of Christians who in 112 years have freely placed over 1.6-billion Bibles and New Testaments in places as diverse as 5-star hotels and condemned men’s prison cells world-wide.

But the Gideons have not been without their set-backs… when the one-billionth Bible was accepted at the White House by President George W. Bush, elaborate celebrations were marred within hours by events of the following day – September 11 2001.

John Nicholson and Samuel Hill were commercial travellers who found themselves forced to share a room in Boscobel’s Central Hotel because it was over-booked on that night in 1898.

The two quickly discovered they shared strong Christian beliefs and values, and decided to maintain contact. Gradually they brought together a fraternity of other Christians in their profession – men who spent long and lonely hours away from their families, moving from hotel room to hotel room as they flogged their wares along the highways and by-ways of America.

By July 1899 they’d formed a small group that called themselves the Gideons, and at a meeting in 1904 decided that to provide comfort for travellers in spiritual need, and to spread the word of the Bible, each man would contribute towards the cost of a Bible being placed at the Reception Desk of hotels in which they stayed.

Four years later at a convention in Louisville, Kentucky, the Gideons voted to go further than a Bible at every Reception Desk: they’d place one in every room of every hotel in America.

The first went into twenty-five rooms in a hotel in the boisterous little mining town of Superior in Montana, and were paid for by one devout Gideon supporter, Archie Bailey.

Since then 1,630,523 Bibles and New Testaments have been placed free of cost in hotels and lodging houses, at Antarctic bases and in desert military camps, aboard cruise ships, in prisons, hospitals and in nursing homes in 192 countries world-wide…

The latest countries to be included in their distribution were Kiribati in September of this year, and Madagascar in October.

Initially members of the Gideons met the costs of the Bibles and their distribution, but later Christian churches began contributing to the cause.

And in some 40-plus years that’s taken us within and without Australia more times than we care to remember, we’ve found only three hotels in Christian countries that did not have a Gideon’s Bible in their rooms.

At Cunnamulla in Queensland, a local hotelier said that while there may not be a Bible in every bedside cabinet, they did have one for every room.

“But they’re kept in the office,” she told us. “Some cattle station blokes who’d stay here on Saturday nights were tearing the pages out of our Bibles because they reckoned they made great roll-your-own smokes,” she said. “There’s now a note in rooms saying they can borrow a Bible from the office if they want.”

Our second encounter was on Vancouver Island in Canada, where our hotel GM said he’d told the Gideons they could put a Bible in every room – if they also gave the hotel a holy book for all other major religions.

“They didn’t of course. But we relented,” he said. “And while not in each room, we now we have Gideon Bibles available at Reception.”

And the third was in New York where guests at a hotel are offered a complimentary pet goldfish during their stay, but not a Gideon’s Bible. Their explanation was that “society evolves.”

The Gideons neither seek publicity nor publicly solicit funds. In Australia they distribute over 350,000 new Bibles and Testaments a year – part of a staggering 1.5-million printed in 90-langues around the world every week.

And all originating from that night 112 years ago when commercial travellers, John H. Nicholson and Samuel E. Hill were forced to share a room in an over-booked hotel.

http://www.eglobaltravelmedia.com.au/file/Spreading%20The%20Word,%20Room%20By%20Room.pdf