The hospitality industry’s green trends are being reflected in an affiliated sector: That of travel sports, one of the fastest growing and prosperous industries.
The numbers don’t lie. In 2023, Americans took a record 204.9 million trips related to sporting events, contributing $52.2 billion in direct spending, 757,600 jobs, and $20.1 billion in tax revenues.
There are strong indicators that events displaying increased measures of eco-sensitivity are becoming more attractive to traveling families. For that reason, event owners and rights holders are seeking out hotels with eco-friendly practices that include the following:
- Partnerships with Clean the World, which collects partially used bars of soap and ships it to a Clean the World facility. The soap is ground, sanitized, melted and reprocessed into new bars of soap that are distributed to areas of the world where lack of sanitation creates health problems.
- Expressing a decided preference for hotels that have eliminated single use bottles of shampoo, conditioner and moisturizer, in exchange for larger containers that can be refilled by housekeeping staff members.
- Working with hotels that promote the fact that they offer green options like recycling, composting, water-efficient toilets and faucets, energy-saving lighting, and recycled paper.
Indoor venues that host amateur events (gymnastics, volleyball, basketball, cheer, dance, futsal or anything else) as well as outdoor facilities that host pro baseball and football, as well as soccer) have been pursuing LEED certification when making renovations, additions or new construction. In some cases, facilities have coated glass walls to prevent bird strikes, displaying a sensitivity to surrounding and migratory wildlife.
Eco-friendliness is being used as a marketing angle. It has a target audience: Millennials, who make up the majority of parents today bringing children to sports events (either as participants or spectators), are eco-conscious and are passing those values along.
Some sports, including downhill skiing, snowboarding, cross country skiing, ice fishing, snowshoe racing, fat tire snow cycling and others, are dependent upon optimal conditions; those events have faced multiple challenges in recent years, and those challenges tend to impact hotel performance. Even the famed Iditarod, which traditionally runs from Anchorage to Nome, had to alter its route to start in the town of Willow, about 70 miles north of Anchorage in order to have reliable snowpack, creating a burden on the limited accommodations in the area (the town’s population is less than 2,000).
In some cases, travel sports events have begun offering promotions, including the following, designed to bring in eco-friendly parents; all of these offer hotels the ability to tie in:
Tennis Ball Recycling Programs: Four different recycling programs for tennis balls are available, allowing balls to be collected, ground and recycled. In some cases, balls are processed, and the components are used for footing in equestrian events. In others, they are made into sports surfaces for tennis and pickleball. Some programs move used balls out into the community to animal shelters, nursing homes (where they are used for footings on walkers), schools (where they find use as bases for desks and chairs) as well as others.
Hotel Takeaway: Putting up a box where athletes can deposit used balls, either to go to animal shelters or other recycling programs, is an excellent way to build goodwill in the community.
Sport Shoe Recycling Programs: The shoe industry produces 24.2 billion pairs a year, which (from material processing, manufacturing, logistics, and eventual waste) is estimated to create 30 pounds of carbon emissions for each pair of running shoes. In response, shoe recycling programs have sprung up, allowing people to drop off used shoes, which are ground down into everything from athletic surfaces for youth sports facilities in underserved areas, to creating new sneakers for children who are experiencing homelessness.
Hotel Takeaway: Marathons bring in athletes with shoes to spare; publicizing the fact that there is a deposit box in the hotel could bring in foot traffic.
Trophy Recycling: This might be a new one for hoteliers but it’s worth learning about. As sports tourism grows, more medals, more trophies, more plaques, more ribbons and more awards are being manufactured and handed out than ever before. Fortunately, there are many recycling programs for a lot of that hardware.
Hotel Takeaway: Any hotel in a city hosting travel sports (or even high-profile events like marathons) will have guests who have won a great deal of this bling; publicizing the fact that there is a deposit box in the hotel could bring in those who want to make deposits, enjoy the lobby bar with friends—or even reserve rooms in advance.
Recycling Education: There’s a big difference between recycling and wishcycling (the practice of throwing items like red Solo cups, plastic straws and other items) and “oughta-cycling,” which is when a user thinks the recycling crew “oughta” wash out that nasty container or that they “oughta” not mind if something is coated with food. Trying to educate consumers on the difference between the two can be difficult—but productive in the long run.
Hotel Takeaway: Information in guestrooms on what can be recycled, what can be composted—and what is trash—will increase understanding of green programs.
Eco-Friendly Programs: In addition to those mentioned above, sports events (both those held in hotel ballrooms and other onsite venues) as well as those held in external facilities, have taken steps to become more eco-friendly by using better food waste practices as well as compostable packaging. In addition, college tailgates have become a source of competition to earn the title of “greenest event” winner.
Hotel Takeaway: Being aware of national programs in the area, including those relating to tailgates, can be one in the W column, since having cards in rooms, messages on in-hotel television channels and more can help reach even more alumni, visitors and sports travelers.
As the sports event industry continues its march toward greenness, there will be multiple opportunities for the hospitality sector to tie into, and to increase its marketability by being involved with, eco-friendly initiatives. The cornerstone, as well as the jumping-off point, is awareness of the initiatives.
Being aware of the mindset of the parents bringing their children into events is a key driver of awareness of issues such as climate change, green building—and the role that can be played by the individual. Leveraging that role in your hotel can pay dividends.
Mary Helen Sprecher is the managing editor of Sports Destination Management, a niche business-to business publication focusing on site selection and industry issues in the sports tourism industry. She has been a technical writer for more than 35 years with the American Sports Builders Association (ASBA), the national association of designers, builders and suppliers of materials for athletic facilities. Previously, she was a full-time newspaper reporter in Baltimore, Md., and has been an instructor in the College of Graduate and Continuing Studies at Goucher College, where she taught meeting and event planning courses. She can be reached at msprecher@duenorthmedia.com.
