HRS Highlights AI Attributes of the Green Stay Initiative in Light of New GBTA Standards

HRS Highlights AI Attributes of the Green Stay Initiative in Light of New GBTA Standards

19 June 2024 – HRS was pleased to play its role in contributing to last week’s GBTA announcement regarding its Sustainable Procurement Standards for Hotels. These standards – crafted to harmonize the various questions on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) commonly used in the corporate hotel procurement process – represent an admirable effort by GBTA’s Sustainability Committee and industry stakeholders on a vital issue.  

As organizations in the hotel RFP ecosystem review these criteria, we are compelled to advise companies and hoteliers alike that HRS’ award-winning Green Stay Initiative is fully aligned with GBTA’s standards today. What’s more, we are advancing the transparency factor for corporations by providing unmatched data spanning from procurement on through to reconciliation. Beyond these guidelines, HRS leads the industry by collecting and normalizing qualitative and quantitative data at the property level.  

The Green Stay Initiative also creatively employs AI to assist corporate buyers as they refine and implement their respective sustainability strategies. For example, a procurement leader could leverage AI to select optimal hotel options with superior environmental performance in select destinations. Moreover, AI automatically detects anomalies in hotel reporting during their assessment, and a backfilling algorithm calculates estimates for hotels not yet part of Green Stay based on the large database of primary data collected on the property level. 

Taking the next logical step, a company’s sustainability priorities can then be reflected to travelers in their booking channels, with booking data feeding back into timely reporting. This end-to-end approach enables corporations to implement a comprehensive science-based sustainable strategy to lodging and meetings programs, aligned with evolving ESG regulations.  

Hotels Participating in the Green Stay Initiative Have a 31% Higher Success Rate in Corporate RFPs

The benefits of HRS’ Green Stay Initiative flow to hoteliers by reducing the complexity of conveying their sustainability metrics to corporate buyers. Hotels no longer need to repeatedly answer the same RFP question or share a certification with various customers. Instead, they can simply update their assessment once every year (or more frequently as they enhance their operational performance). These attributes are then displayed via HRS’ Lodging-as-a-Service procurement platform, with corporate buyers easily able to discern a company’s Green Stay level, score, normalized and comparable metrics, certifications, and other sustainability programs, etc. Travelers can then identify those hotels that reach minimum environmental requirements on their online booking channels via Green Stay labels and filters. 

HRS has established the Green Stay Knowledge Hub for hoteliers to learn more about the Green Stay Initiative. Corporate procurement leaders and travel managers can view this video, and also write to HRS at greenstay@hrs.com to get more information about leveraging this technology in procurement and booking activities.

→ Statement attributable to Martin Biermann, HRS Chief Product Officer