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Championing sustainable travel alongside recovery
Rebuilding a more sustainable travel landscape in London
What a crazy couple of years we’ve had! The coronavirus pandemic has completely uprooted the world as we know it and as had some devastating effects across all layers of our lives. The world of short term rentals in London is no exception and the hospitality industry as a whole has been hit hard.
We’re now at a pivotal moment where we are starting to see our way back to normality, attempting to rebuild whilst still facing some pretty big challenges. But with every challenge there is an opportunity: we are able to reimagine what the travel landscape will look like and build back better.
One of the major trends we’re seeing is a renewed focus on sustainable travel and sustainable tourism. After a year of quite intense changes, we’re all looking inwards and trying to make more conscious choices when booking our stays.
As a business, we want to offer our guests more forms of sustainable travel – not just because it matches our values, but because it’s what our guests are looking for. 84% of UK consumers have said that being more environmentally friendly is important to them.
The pandemic has given us a chance to focus on what’s really important to us, deep diving into our supply chains to put into practice meaningful changes and initiatives to reduce our carbon footprint and become a more sustainable travel company.
Sustainable travel is often associated with more rural destinations, and as we operate in a big city, we’re really interested in how we can create a culture of sustainable tourism in London.
How we’re bringing sustainable travel into our business
For our guests looking to travel responsibly, it’s our duty to make their stay and everything we do around their stay as low impact as possible! For us, sustainable tourism means finding practical solutions to the aspects of travel accommodation which traditionally have negative environmental impacts, taking steps towards becoming a truly sustainable travel company.
Finding the right form of sustainable travel in London without compromising is not always easy. For example guests may see that a hotel has stopped using plastic miniatures, but they might not see that behind the scenes their operations have a very high carbon footprint. That’s why sustainability in our properties is treated holistically, covering all areas of our business. We’re trying to become a model of what a sustainable travel company looks like in London.
In house products
Excessive plastic, excessive air miles and low quality or unethically sourced ingredients are just some of the issues we see with the products in traditional hotels and travel accommodation.
Taking the time to source local, vegan, low impact products has been an ongoing project for us, and you’ll only find brands we deem ethical enough in our properties. Plus, you also won’t find a miniature in sight- no business needs to be throwing away that much plastic! We offer all of our toiletries, welcome items and cooking essentials in refillables.
Lowering our operational impacts
While it may not be the first thing our guests see, making sustainable choices behind the scenes is essential as it tends to account for a big segment of our carbon footprint. We’ve embraced a low touch approach to our buildings, taking advantage of technology to limit the amount of on the ground staff and suppliers needed on site, paring back travel and day to day emissions significantly.
Linen supply and washing can also have a pretty high impact, and most hotels don’t change bed linens daily anymore (thank goodness!). We only change bed linens mid-stay at our guests request and we try to find suppliers who are in line with our values, for example using electric delivery vehicles.
Embracing the power of digital
Nestor’s main priority has always been guest experience- doing everything we can to give our guests an amazing stay, including tips, tricks and insider knowledge. One of the challenges we faced was finding the best way to distribute all the information guests need for an incredible stay whilst being totally paperless. We’ve embraced digital house manuals, locals area guides and digital forms to book extra services like breakfast and taxis, accessible via QR codes found in our properties.
Our neighbourhood guides are designed to help our guests get to know what their new area has to offer and find tried and tested places to visit, eat and drink. We try to support local, independent businesses and encourage our guests to support the local community as much as possible!
Planting trees to offset carbon emissions
We’re excited to now be planting a tree for every direct booking we receive, offering a small token of our appreciation, whilst giving our guests a tangible gift that will go towards offsetting some of their carbon emissions during their stay. The reason we’ve chosen tree planting is that they:
- Absorb carbon from the atmosphere
- Provide farms with work to support the local economy
- Give someone an income and a skill to feed their family
- Protect animals from deforestation
- Increase rainfall, purify water and improve crop yield.
Find out more about our More Trees initiative here.