1

COMMUNICATING SUSTAINABLE TOURISM

FOOD TO CREATE COMMUNITY- “THE FORAGE AT YOUR TABLE”

Mireia Munoz, 2016

Content

1. How to communicate a specific sustainable tourism activity ................. 4

2. Sustainability practice ........................................................................... 5

3. Why is this practice original .................................................................. 5

4. Where in Respondeco website ............................................................... 6

5. The Photo .............................................................................................. 6

6. How this case study was written .......................................................... 7

7. Bibliography ........................................................................................... 8

2

1. CASE STUDY ON HOW TO COMMUNICATE A SPECIFIC

SUSTAINABLE TOURISM ACTIVITY

Tittle: Food to create community

Subtitle: The forage at your table

“The best reasons to choose the Listel hotel, is because of our serious commitment

to the city’s arts and cultural scene, and our even more serious commitment to

sustainability” ( http://www.thelistelhotel.com/our-hotel.php)

WHAT WE DO

From the commitment to environmental protection and sustainability, The Listel

Hotel has created an eco- initiative to minimize their impact on the environment

through resource conservation and best practices.

HOW WE TELL

We do offer to our guest an authentic experience with our Forage package. We do

believe that through food you can communicate the sense of a place and the

freshness of the current season of the year. Our Forage in the City, will give the

opportunity to our guest of picking, and learning through the seasonal forest

resources, walking in the woods with a well recognized Chef that will explain them

about the products they pick. They will be learning how to create innovative and

sustainable dishes with their choices, while emphasising on past traditions. Using

seasonal products from the local farmers and fisher folks, preserving everything we

can for winter flavours, and pairing dishes with local drinks, we want to give to our

guest a real culinary experience.

OUR TOP TIP

Put in practise your sustainability creating a sense of quality and with practicality.

Instead of telling the message to your audience, get them involved with an activity.

This way, the message will be more appealing to be received and understood by

your audience.

3

1. SUSTAINABILITY PRACTICE

The Listel hotel has been recently awarded with a five Key by the Green Key Global.

The specific sustainability practice identified in this case is the contribution to the

economic benefit for the local communities, sourcing and promoting organic food

and local supplies, while enhancing a cultural heritage through their food process.

The Listel hotel is encouraging their customers to do the same, and to teaching

them how to do it. Their hotel´s restaurant “The Forage” partnerships, with a wider

network of sustainable local associations, which promote organic food production,

local food sources, and responsible agriculture to protect the environment, and to

help ensuring a healthy and productive future for the local and global forest.

The practise the hotel adopted focusing on “maximizing” the social and economic

benefits for the local community, minimizing negative impacts” (GSTC 2012) is

compliant with the section B, of the Global Sustainable Tourism Council Criteria.

The hotel involves local business within their food chain supplies, and provides to

their customers some knowledge of the local environment, and cultural heritage of

the area.

3. WHY IS THIS PRACTISE ORIGINAL

The “Forage in the City” is a product presented to existent and new customers of

the hotel. The package involves the customers to do an outdoor activity. It

originates or intensifies their curiosity for the local environment, and seeks to

examine their inner creativity, as they will be learning after how to use the products

they have picked while touring on the forest, to create delicious and sustainable

dishes during that learning process. The practise is original, because it involves the

customers actively within their sustainability with a fun activity, spending time

learning about local products from the forest and after spending time in the kitchen

learning what they can do, and how to use those products. The company has the

opportunity of communicating their commitment with the environment, using

organic products, and once in the kitchen they will be also showing their customers

their compromise with local farmers, and another sustainable food supplies chains

they use in their sustainable compromise.

The hotel includes this package in the list of their regular and exclusive services.

The “Forage in the City” will consist of their basic accommodation package, plus

adding the “eco” experience of a workshop to learn how to preserve, a tasting

menu of organic products and a walking tour to the rain forest to identify seasonal

products. The hotel is having a functional strategy, since they are adding the

“green” element of sustainability to their current holiday experience through a new

product

The hotel communicates this package through its website only, however the clear

promotion, advertising and activities of their restaurant, and sustainability food

concept through their facebook page and social media channels where the Forage is

highly visible, and seen from many different approaches, ensures the company to

4

introduce their sustainability concept, targeting it to a higher number of customers,

not only the “green market” and increasing Brand Value and reputation (Font

2013).

Beyond the green positioning of this practice, the creation of an active initiative

where the promotion of a place, showing the environment involvement and

communicating to the customer the affordability of this sustainability product, will

make the competitive advantage to be possible (Emmaa Rex et al, 2007).

The Listel use a wide communication channels, to communicate their food

sustainability ethos, in an original but easy to understand way through their own

social media channels. Likewise through the association and partnerships with local

institutions, such as the FarmFolkCityfolk (http://www.farmfolkcityfolk.ca/windfall/), they

have increased chances of arriving to a much wider audience. Through their “Next

Course- serving a more sustainable future” blog ( http://thenextcourse.ca/wordpress),

they provide a much specific information about the creation of the Forage and their

food sustainability commitment, targeted to a more “green” audience.

Finally, the communication strategy the Listel hotel adopted, can be useful to

inspire other business since is connecting three big sustainability focus (heritage,

local economy, environmental protection), using the regular business channels such

as their website and social media channels, and implementing sustainability from

inside the business within their inclusive basic service, ensuring to target the new

and existent customers.

4. WHERE IN RESPONDECO WEBSITE

The “Forage in the City”, would be placed in the Raise Awareness and change

behaviour section of the Respondeco website. The concept itself creates awareness

of the environment and the local products, with the tour to the rain forest to

discover and identify the seasonal products, and also showing the cultural heritage

of the location, with the food preservation activity.

The customer will engage on the sustainability message in a fun and active way,

engaging with the staff of the company that will be touring with them, and will take

actively part of the sustainability company ethos.

Through this sustainability activity, the company is empowering the customer to

change their behaviour showing them that food sustainability is possible, it´s

healthier, taste different and it can be affordable to do. The customer will also have

the opportunity to know what differences a change of behaviour can mean, for the

local economies since local food suppliers will also be highly involved in this activity.

Give your customers something in return. The unforgettable knowledge of

preserving seasonal products, but also the welcome gift of a local preserve that the

will be making remind you after their visit when they are about to use it maybe

months after.

5. THE PHOTO

5

The picture used for this case study, has been sourced by the hotel website, and it

is the content banner of the “Forage in the City” package product.

The image represents the forest and the natural food sourcing. By showing the Chef

touching the tree branch and the fruits that will automatically bring us to the idea

of discovering more about the tree and the environment, but since it´s a live tree

will also create the urge of understanding how to preserve the fruits. With only one

image, the coverage of the most distinguished points of their package offered.

The colour of the image prevail green, even the shadow where the side of the

image is not showing clear, to empathise on branding name, intend to give a green

sensation to the customer.

Another interesting fact, is the Forage brand font style and keeping the colour

green that is completely different to the rest of the another brand products the

hotel have.

6. HOW THIS CASE STUDY WAS WRITTEN

The case study has been written in first plural person, to show more engagement of

the brand in the communication of a practice they actively and effectively are

promoting.

An important part of the case study has been to create a title and subtitle, which

delivered a clear, short and firm message of the sustainability practice being

presented. And to keep the reader interested and motivated of the case study

content.

The decision of using Verdana pt.10 was also with the intention of deliver a clear,

and legible message to the reader.

The introduction intended to be concise, and the message was taken from the hotel

website itself. Words such as “experience”, “learning” and “create” have been

connected to the idea of enthusiasm and the customer experience. Also words as

“local” and “heritage” wanted to recall the sense of community, because those two

topics are the content of the sustainability practice for this case study.

The sections related to the Respondeco website, has been written respecting the site

structure; the “What we do” section provide a very succinct idea of the sustainability ethos of

the hotel. The “How we tell” explains the way they communicate their sustainability with their

customers, create awareness and participation. Finally, on the “Top tip” the intention of

communicate to other businesses, how to communicate and approach their customers in a

simple and effective manner.

6

7. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly. 2000. “The Costs and Benefits of Consuming.” Journal of Consumer Research 27 (2): pp.267–72.

DEFRA. 2008. “A FRAMEWORK FOR PROENVIRONMENTAL BEHAVIOURS.” Department for

Environment, Food and Rural Affairs´´ Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/69277/pb13574-behaviours-report-080110.pdf {Accessed 2016-07-01}

Emmaa Rex, Henrikke Baumann. 2007. “Beyond Ecolabels: What Green Marketing Can Learn

from Conventtional Marketing.” Journal of Cleaner Production, 15 edition. Font, X., Garay, L and Jones, S. 2014. “Sustainability Motivations and Practises in Small Tourism

Enterprises.” Forthcoming at the Journal of Cleaner Production. Harold Goodwin_ and Justin Francis. 2003. “Ethical and Responsible Tourism: Consumer

Trends in the UK.” Journal of Vacation Marketing Vol. 9 No.: 271–84. Harold Goodwin and Xavier Font. 2014. “Progress in Responsible Tourism.” Goodfellow

Publishers Limited 3 (1) (April). Http://thenextcourse.ca/wordpress/. 2016. Accessed January 22. Javiera Villarino and Dr Xavier Font. n.d. “Sustainability Marketing Myopia: The Lack of

Sustainability Communication Persuasiveness.” Pre-Publication Version of the Article Published at Journal of Vacation Marketing.

Maria Jesus Bonilla-Priegoa, Juan Jose Najerab and Xavier Font. 2011. “Envorinmental

Management Decision-Making in Certified Hotels.” Journal of Sustainable Tourism, April, Vol. 19, No3 edition.

TOTEM TOURISM. 2016. “SUSTAINABLE TOURISM MARKETING GUIDE 2013.” Accessed January

1. www.totemtourism.com. Xavier Font. 2013. “Responsible Tourism Marketing Manual,” Leeds Beckett University edition. Xavier Font and Janet Cochrane of Leeds Metropolitan University. 2005. “Integrating

Sustainability into Business: A Management Guide for Responsible Tour Operators.” Global Sustainability Tourism Council (2012) “Global Sustainable Tourism Council Criteria for

Hotels and Tour Operators 2 (23) {Online} Available from http://www.gstcouncil.org/en/gstc-criteria/criteria-for-hotels-and-tour-operators/39-general/general-content/634-global-sustainable-tourism-criteria-for-hotels-and-tour-operators.html {Accessed 02 Jan 2016}

The Listel Hotel (2016) Forage in the City. Available from

http://www.thelistelhotel.com/packages.php {Accessed 20 Dec 2015}