Introduction
Many countries in the world depend on the travel and hospitality industry as the major source of revenue. Indeed, the travel and hospitality industry plays a significant role in economic emancipation. In today’s technologically advancing world, and competitive business markets, various organizations must come up with new strategies in order to retain customers and even attract others. Additionally, many business segments focus on modalities of expanding their portfolios in order to increase their market share.
In this new area of technological revolution, organizations engage in other activities in order to please their customers. In fact, the main role of corporate events in any organisation or company is to entertain clients so that they become happier than they were before. This is the reason why many organizations continue to employ new strategies in order to attract prospective clients (Holcomb, Upchurch & Okumus, 2007, pp. 461-475).
The Intercontinental Hotels Group’s corporate hospitality section is expanding at a fast rate and many clients consider it one of the best. This is simply because the sector has mastered the art of linking spectators and activities in order to offer judicious hospitality products and services to clients.
Owing to these facts, the intercontinental hotels group has the responsibility of retaining and attracting new customers by adopting new strategies. This report will assess the intercontinental hotel group – green engage sustainability system as a corporate hospitality event (Paton, 2007, pp. 46-49).
Intercontinental Hotels Group
Intercontinental Hotels Group undoubtedly runs the biggest multinational hotels in the world. The group has its headquarters in Denham, United Kingdom. It has over 4000 hotels across the globe and enormous accommodation spaces. It also has several brands such as Holiday Inn Express, Hotel Indigo and Even.
Other brands include Intercontinental and Candlewood Suites. One of the most common features about these hotels is that they run under franchise agreements. In other words, the company runs the affairs of the hotels, but different stakeholders own them. Of all the hotels under the group, investors only own and manage ten.
The International Hotels Group also has listed some of its shares in major trading stock markets. For instance, FTSE 100 index, London Stock Exchange, and New York Stock Exchange are some of the stock markets that have listed International Hotels Group shares. Primarily, the Intercontinental Hotels Group manages all hotels owned by the group.
It also performs other functions such as franchising the IHG brands in order to attract customers. The hotel mainly involves itself in hospitality activities such as hotel management, accommodation, creation of systems, and sales and marketing of their products.
The owners are responsible for the construction of new hotels and coming up of new structures to house other services. This is simply because these activities need risk profiling; require enormous management skills and capital to run. So far, the group has sixteen corporately owned hotels that use the brand (Intercontinental Hotel Group, 2013, p. 1).
Green Engage sustainability system
The intercontinental hotel group owns the best hotel brands in the world, but it also understands that the change of climatic conditions affects their business. Like any other organisation, IHG commits itself towards reducing energy, carbon, and other substances that destroy the environment.
The group is also committed towards clean energy, as a way of minimizing emissions. For instance, in the past, the management has resorted to other means of energy by stopping the purchase of carbon commodities. The group has also collaborated with other developers to identify and implement not only cost-effective, but also sustainable technology.
We have seen that IHG has over 4500 hotels. Furthermore, the stakeholders are doing all they can in order to introduce clean technology into their business portfolios.
The stakeholders have also put in place mechanisms to ensure that the hotel not only complies with climate change patters, but also adopts sustainable technologies. We now that green technology is evolving at a fast rate. In order to meet the demands of green technology, the group has employed professionals to explore new designs that are sustainable (Intercontinental Hotel Group, 2013, p. 1).
Green Engage System
Some few years ago, the Intercontinental Hotels Group unveiled its online sustainability system to check compliance of sustainability. This system plays a significant role in ensuring that all IHG hotels not only conserve resources, but also save money. In order to realize this, the system proposes constant measuring and reporting of waste consumption, water consumption and hotel energy. This is important because it will reduce the skyrocketing energy costs.
In fact, energy costs have been major concerns to owners who have witnessed the rising energy prices lower their profits and threaten their businesses. The taxation of carbon fuels also threatens the operations of the hotels and therefore, there was need to look for new and sustainable ways of energy. There is no doubt that by unveiling this system, the intercontinental hotels group showed its commitment towards ensuring sustainability.
Since the unveiling of the system, stakeholders have received the system without complains. There has been consensus among stakeholders and all of them believe that the system is good to their business. In fact, this has led to the certification of the system making IHG the first hotel in the world to receive such accreditation.
Many stakeholders believe that the system is advantageous especially to environmental sustainability, and provides mechanisms of ensuring sustainability. Moreover, the reason why stakeholders approved the system is that it routinely creates reports and sets new energy benchmarks in order to make comparisons with other useful data.
The system also plays other significant roles such as providing green solutions, and generating new and sustainable hotel designs. The system also provides information on new ways of reducing the impacts brought about by non-sustainable energy sources. Notably, the green engage system functions like a library of information to stakeholders.
For instance, the green engage system has information on selecting suitable site for development, and choosing the right lighting for a particular hotel. This happens through selecting conscientious cleaning materials and training of employees on issues of sustainability. Since the adoption of the system, stakeholders continue to realize their return of investment. Additionally, the system has led to the reduction of carbon emissions and increased the number of guests thus, generating more revenue (U.S. Department of Energy, 2013, p. 1).
Benefits of the Green Engage System to stakeholders
The biggest beneficiaries of the green engage system are the stakeholders. To start with, the system has enabled the IHG hotels to save over 25 percent of energy. This translated to over $300 million, money that the group can invest elsewhere. So far, over 3000 hotels under the group have adopted the system and the management expects all hotels to adopt the system soon.
Stakeholders believe that the green engage system offers considerable competitive edge towards ensuring sustainability. For instance, through the system, the IHG hotels have become cost-effective. This means that it is able to offer better and improved services that will only attract more prospective customers, but also retain them. There is no doubt that many clients prefer to stay in ‘green’ rooms, and this desire enabled IHG to win a contract worth £300,000 annually for seven consecutive years (Mayock, 2011, p. 1).
Culture Shift
By adopting the green engage system, the intercontinental hotel group has adopted a new culture of ensuring sustainability. Unlike the past, the green engage system provides information on the levels of sustainability, tracks the process of sustainability, and releases progress reports that indicate areas to improve.
Notably, in a highly competitive travel and hospitality market, the adoption of the system marked a culture shift that not only recommends green technology solutions, but also encourages competition. There is no doubt that the system has introduced a culture shift in the hospitality industry for sustainability reasons.
For instance, the green engage system provides a calculator that hotel managers can use to calculate the carbon footprint. Consequently, if it is high, then they can look for ways of minimizing it (EcoCommericial Building, 2013, p. 1).
Conclusion
The green engage system developed by the intercontinental hotels group is a step towards ensuring clean energy. Since its adoption, the company has managed to reduce carbon footprints thus reducing the rising energy costs. Most importantly, many visitors enjoy staying in the IHG ‘green’ hotels.
References
Eco Commericial Building, 2013, The effort to be sustainable from the hotel groups. Web.
Holcomb, J. L., Upchurch, R. S., & Okumus, F., 2007, ‘Corporate social responsibility: What are top hotel companies reporting’, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 9 no. 6, pp. 461-475.
Intercontinental Hotel Group, 2013, Corporate Responsibility Report: Green Engage. Web.
Mayock, P., 2011, IHG reaps energy savings with Green Engage. Web.
Paton, N., 2007, ‘Giving something back’, Caterer & Hotelkeeper, vol. 197 no. 4496, pp. 46-49.
U.S. Department of Energy, 2013, Showcase project: Intercontinental Hotel Group. Web.