Holiday Angst
The Times, January 2008
Working out where to go on holiday gets harder and harder. It’s not just pressing issues such as whether Italian food is better than French. The vast majority of concerned consumers also want to be able to factor in the social and environmental impact of the holidays they take. This comes as no surprise - the greater the level of involvement with a purchase decision and the more it is taken to express something about the individual and their values and ideals the more social and environmental issues matter.
The growing desire to factor ethics in creates a thirst for information. 85% of concerned consumers do not currently feel they normally know enough to make an informed choice.
They want to know the carbon intensity and the environmental impact of factors such as water use and waste management. They want to know more about the local economic impact, whether local suppliers are used and how they are managed. They want to know it all.
This is perfectly rational. All these issues are deemed important and the only way to evaluate holiday options holistically is to factor them in.
However it’s also perfectly clear that crunching all this information and performing a complete ethical cost- benefits analysis would be an incredibly time-consuming and difficult process. For the vast majority of consumers who are just looking to do the right thing in the midst of their busy lives it’s never going to happen.
This creates an opportunity for holiday companies. They need to provide consumers with an easy way to evaluate the impact of holidays.
This probably means resisting the temptation to inundate them with information and develop a host of labels and standards to denote the low-carbon, the eco-friendly, the locally-staffed and so on. And instead defining a total ‘care rating’ which encompasses all of these factors. So that consumers can see, at a glance, how their holiday performs on a social and environmental front.
Leaving them free to go back to that all-important culinary debate.
