Guest participation in sustainability and cultural initiatives only works when visitors know what is happening, understand why it matters and know how they can take part. Good communication therefore does more than promote what your organisation is doing. It helps turn sustainability from something happening behind the scenes into something guests and tourists can see, understand and experience.
Done well, this communication can strengthen the visitor experience, build trust and loyalty, demonstrate responsibility and help differentiate your organisation. But it needs to be credible. Broad claims such as “eco-friendly” or “sustainable” can create skepticism when they are not supported by clear information or evidence. Instead, communicate what you are actually doing, explain the progress you have made and be open about what you are still working on.
The most effective approach is to communicate throughout the visitor journey. Before arrival, help visitors understand what they can expect. During their visit, make sustainability and culture visible and participation easy. After they leave, show what their participation contributed to and keep the connection alive.
The visitor’s sustainability experience begins before the person arrives. Long before check-in or the start of a tour, visitors are already researching where to stay, how to travel, what to do and which experiences they want to include in their trip. This creates an important opportunity to introduce sustainability and culture as part of the experience from the beginning.
Many hotels and tourism businesses already have meaningful sustainability initiatives in place, yet these can be surprisingly difficult for visitors to discover. A business may be reducing its environmental impact, working with local producers, supporting cultural preservation or offering sustainability activities, while none of this is clearly visible on its website or social media. When these efforts remain behind the scenes, visitors cannot consider them when making travel decisions, understand the organisation’s commitment or discover opportunities to participate.
Pre-arrival communication should therefore achieve two things. First, it should make your wider sustainability efforts and progress visible. Second, it should give visitors a preview of the sustainability and cultural experiences they can expect during their visit and help them plan for opportunities that interest them.
Create a dedicated sustainability webpage and consider publishing a yearly sustainability report on your website.
Create a short sustainability video for your website, social media and on-site screens. See Six Senses example
Share sustainability progress, achievements and initiatives regularly on social media.
Highlight sustainability and cultural activities, workshops and events visitors can experience during their visit.
Share sustainable transport options to help visitors plan their arrival.
Introduce opportunities for visitors to participate and allow advance registration where relevant.
Use real photos and videos to give visitors a preview of what they can expect.
Include a short sustainability section in existing booking confirmations or pre-arrival information rather than creating additional messages.
During the visit, sustainability communication becomes part of the physical and digital environment around the visitor. This is the opportunity to make initiatives visible at the moment they are most relevant and turn awareness into action. Information in rooms, on screens, in common areas, on menus or at activity locations can explain what your organisation is doing and, importantly, give visitors a clear call to action.
Use hotel screens and digital displays to promote sustainability initiatives, activities and upcoming events.
Place simple sustainability information in guest rooms and relevant common areas.
Include clear calls to action such as “Join the workshop,” “Refill your bottle here” or “Help us reduce food waste.”
Use QR codes that take visitors directly to activity registration, further information or impact stories.
Explain the impact behind requested actions, such as towel reuse, water conservation or waste separation.
Use menus and displays to highlight local and sustainable food, products and producers.
Show real results and progress, such as waste reduced, water saved or local businesses supported.
Train staff to answer questions and actively introduce relevant sustainability and cultural opportunities.
The sustainability experience can continue after visitors leave. If they participated in an initiative, made more sustainable choices or joined a cultural activity, post-visit communication can show that their contribution mattered. This is an opportunity to close the loop by sharing results, reinforcing what they learned and keeping them connected to your sustainability journey. It does not need to become another marketing campaign. Follow up when there is something relevant and meaningful to share.
Send a short follow-up showing what their participation helped achieve.
Share results from activities, such as waste reduced, resources saved or another measurable outcome.
Provide updates on sustainability or cultural initiatives they participated in.
Give visitors simple ideas for continuing what they learned at home.
Invite feedback on sustainability initiatives and ask what could be improved.
Share relevant sustainability progress through existing newsletters or social media rather than creating unnecessary additional communication.
Highlight new or upcoming sustainability and cultural activities to give previous participants a reason to return and experience something new.
Across every stage of the visitor journey, sustainability and cultural communication should follow six simple principles:
1. Be Authentic: Sustainability is a journey, and your communication should reflect that. You do not need to present your organisation as perfectly sustainable or wait until you have achieved every goal before talking about your efforts. Instead, be open about where you are today, what you have already achieved and what you are still working towards. If you have reduced plastic use by 50%, for example, celebrate that progress while acknowledging that there is more to do. No business goes from doing a little to doing everything at once. Taking visitors along on that journey can feel far more credible than presenting an image of perfection. Most importantly, never promise more than you can deliver or make sustainability claims you cannot support.
2. Be Specific: Authenticity becomes much stronger when visitors can see the evidence behind what you say. Instead of telling them that you are “reducing waste” or “committed to sustainability,” show them what that means. How much have you reduced? What actions made the difference? What is your next target? Clear facts, figures and measurable goals turn general statements into something visitors can understand and trust. Certifications and independent verification can provide additional credibility, but do not assume that visitors know what a certification means. Explain briefly what it represents and why it matters.
3. Make it easy to Understand: Evidence is important, but sustainability communication should not feel like reading a technical report. Use language that visitors can understand quickly and naturally. Terms such as “circular economy,” “carbon neutrality” or “ESG” may be familiar within your organisation but mean little to some visitors. Whenever possible, replace technical terminology with a simple explanation of what is actually happening. If a specific term is necessary, explain it. The easier your message is to understand, the easier it is for visitors to connect with it and know what they can do.
4. Make it Relevant: Visitors do not only need to know what you are doing. They need to understand why it matters. Connect each initiative to something tangible, whether that is protecting the environment, preserving local culture, supporting local businesses and communities or improving the sustainability of their own visit. The same applies when asking visitors to participate. Rather than simply telling a guest to reuse a towel, separate waste or choose a particular option, explain what their action contributes to. Giving an action a clear purpose can make participation feel meaningful rather than like another instruction.
5. Make it Visible: Even the best message cannot have an impact if visitors never see it. Sustainability information should be easy to find and appear where it is relevant to the visitor. Your wider commitments and progress might belong on a dedicated webpage or sustainability report, while a message about local food makes more sense on a menu and an invitation to participate in an activity may work better on an in-room screen or at check-in. The goal is not to communicate sustainability everywhere, but to put the right information in the right place at the right time.
6. Be Consistent: Finally, sustainability communication needs to stay current. A sustainability webpage that has not been updated for years or an old target that no longer reflects your progress can quickly undermine credibility. Update facts, figures, achievements and goals as they change, and establish a rhythm that works for your organisation. Some progress may be worth sharing monthly or quarterly, while a yearly sustainability report can provide a more complete picture of how your organisation is progressing. Consistency also means making sure that what visitors read online, see during their visit and hear from your staff reflects the same commitments and, most importantly, matches what your organisation is actually doing.
