Jelena Kezika, Senior Director Strategy, GHA on sustainable programmes at Global Hotel Alliance and Green Collection.
Global Hotel AllianceGLO Video Interview at ATM 2023 with Jelena Kezika, Senior Director Strategy , Global Hotel Alliance
1:55: On challenges companies face in their sustainability Journey
5:03: On changing customer demands
8:00: GHA’s sustainability efforts and Green Collection
12:39: On Donate Discovery Dollars
Dilek Glenister, GLO: Good afternoon from ATM Dubai. I’m joined by Jelena Kezika, Senior Director Strategy at Global Hotel Alliance.
Jelena Kezika, GHA: My role with Global Hotel Alliance (GHA) is based on business strategy. I help develop and implement projects and initiatives that support sustainable growth for GHA and its core product GHA Discovery Loyalty Programme. Just to give you an example of projects I work on: Green Collection is a new initiative that we launched at GHA in March this year. I had the pleasure to lead this project with great support from the GHA Discovery team. For those who are not aware of GHA: we are the world’s largest Alliance of independent hotel brands bringing together over 800 hotels in hundred destinations. Our core product GHA Discovery Programme is adopted by all 40 brands in the Alliance. We deliver it to 24 million members of the GHA Discovery Programme.
Dilek Glenister, GLO: Looking at GHA’s and its members’ journey in sustainability what challenges did you face in the past and what challenges do you expect for this year?
Jelena Kezika, GHA: I think there’s a lot of pressure when it comes to sustainability on any industry, but hospitality sector also sees it. In my view it’s built based on several external and internal factors. When we are talking about external factors, the first one to mention of course is the customer. The customer is the greatest driver of sustainability efforts, and we should celebrate that. But also, we know that investors increasingly want to invest in sustainable companies. We also see that regulators in different markets are catching up on policies that in the future the industry will need to comply with. At the same time, different hotels and different hotel brands have a lot of pressure internally. For example, from financial investments that companies have to make to become more sustainable. There are still shortages of staff, and they need to be addressed. Sustainability is a big topic but at the same time, many hotels don’t know how to get started as they don’t have the expertise perhaps or don’t have internal resources to run these programs and implement the strategy. However, at the same time, I would like to mention that all the factors I mentioned, all the challenges hotels and hotel brands are seeing at the moment, can be converted into positives, into opportunities. And this is what we see at Global Hotel Alliance. We all understand that investment is a challenge, but companies see that today’s investment will become a saving in the future. They understand that the shortages of staff are there, but they are able to find very passionate employees at their hotels who are interested in sustainability efforts and programs and they’re willing to run them. Just to give you an example from Global Hotel Alliance: our Dubai-based brand JA Resorts and Hotels run all their sustainability efforts through their sustainability committee and a big portion of this committee are employees. They’re extremely passionate and proud of everything that they’re able to deliver for their brand – setting example for brands in the Alliance but also in the industry overall.
Dilek Glenister, GLO: If you look at your members and their approach to sustainability and their demands from your loyalty program, how have you seen them evolve?
Jelena Kezika, GHA: Customer demand has changed notably during the pandemic but at GHA we’ve seen the shift in the member and hotel guest mindset even before that. GHA Discovery loyalty program is co-created by our members, and we are proud of that. We are actively listening to the needs, beliefs and interests of our members and we’re implementing these aspects in every piece of the GHA Discovery program. So, to answer your question, in 2019 we worked on a complex project to redefine the value proposition of our loyalty program as we know it today. One of its key pillars is the concept to go and “live local”. Live local was addressed by our members because some of them wanted to be connected with the program not only when they are travelling internationally but also when they are staying in their local environment. So, they perhaps decided not to travel as often as they did in the past and they wanted their favourite loyalty program to help them reduce their carbon footprint. They wanted to support financially the local economies and they addressed this need with us. Live local concept helps them to be rewarded and recognized when they travel but also in the home environment. We do that through staycations which are very popular in Dubai but interest in staycations is growing worldwide. So, we also allow our members to enjoy the facilities of hotels for instance access to the gym or pool or the beach either on a complimentary basis or on a reduced-cost basis. So, they don’t have to forget their favourite hotels and brands. They still stay connected with them in their city or in their country. They also stay connected with the local community of travellers because together with our hotels we organise member meetups and events to bring together our members so they can talk about sustainability or other aspects of life they’re interested in
Dilek Glenister, GLO: I know that your sustainability efforts go far beyond just the ecological or climate side. You are also supporting charities and the local communities. Your Green Collection has actually been a result of listening to your members. Can you tell us a little bit more in detail about Green Collection and your efforts to support the local communities and charities?
Jelena Kezika, GHA: There are three areas we are focusing on at the level of Global Hotel Alliance in collaboration with 40 hotel brands. These three areas are the live local concept which we just spoke about now, the Green Collection which we launched in March and work with different charity and philanthropy programs and initiatives that we either develop on our corporate level or in collaboration with our branches. Green Collection was a result of customer demand. In fact, in our 2023 Trend Survey told us that our members want help with sustainable accommodation choices. So, we decided to look at what we have to offer them in the GHA Discovery Loyalty programme. Green Collection is a collection of nearly 200 hotels – very diverse from eco-lodges to safari camps, beach resorts and beautiful city locations. The perception that a sustainable hotel is always a new build and always a beach resort is completely wrong. Knowing that members are travelling for different reasons in their lives, we want to make sure that Green Collection addresses their needs every time. When creating the Collection we wanted to stay transparent and authentic and avoid greenwashing. So we worked with the hotels in the Alliance but we also worked with 15 recognized global international or national certifications such as Earth Check, Green Force, Green Key, Green Globe and many others. So for years, they worked with GHA Discovery hotels guiding them through the process of addressing sustainability elements from consultancy to goal setting to result measurement and setting of new goals. We decided that it’s a great platform for our members to have access to and we made it very transparent and clear to our members that the key pillars of Green Collection are focusing on areas that are important to them: sustainable planning, support of local communities, protection of cultural heritage but also reducing negative impact on the environment.
Dilek Glenister, GLO: 200 hotels within the Green Collection is already a very impressive number. What’s the demand or uptake from your remaining members in the Alliance?
Jelena Kezika, GHA: From the day we launched Green Collection we already had so many questions from hotels in the Alliance about how they can join. In fact, two more hotels joined already. As I said we wanted to help our customers to make informative decisions but at the same time we wanted to create a platform for our hotels in the Alliance and also in the industry to share best practices, and to ask each other questions about how to get started and how to get better. When it comes to sustainability, we truly believe there is no place for competition. It’s all about working together towards common goals.
Dilek Glenister, GLO: The Green Collection has been a tremendous success congratulations on that. What is next?
Jelena Kezika, GHA: As I mentioned earlier live local is a concept launched in 2021 and we keep growing it because we see interest from our member base and we want to make it more prominent. Green Collection was just launched. Overall, I have to say that the interest of our members in sustainable hotels is significant. We’ve seen it, we’ve noticed it even years before the launch of Green Collection. For instance, in 2022 nearly half of our total revenues came from hotels that today are part of Green Collection. It’s a great message and we are very positive about the growth of Green Collection in the future.
What is next? This month we are launching a new initiative which we call “Donate Discovery Dollars”. Donate Discovery Dollars will allow members of the program to donate the Discovery Dollar currency to one of 12 charities that our brands work with or founded. These charities fall into four groups: we work with charities that support animal protection, animal welfare, protect the natural environment, charities that support families in terms of health programs and charities that support education for children and youth. Discovery Dollars were launched in 2021. It’s our innovative rewards currency. Its conversion is very simple: one Discovery Dollar equals one US dollar. It’s a powerful currency and we allow our members to earn up to 7% back in cash every time they spend and stay with us. They’re able to use Discovery Dollars to reduce their hotel bills during their next stay or donate Discovery Dollars which allows them to support charities and causes they truly believe in.
