Jin Jiang Hotel Wins ‘Sustainable Travel Contribution Award’ for Innovative Green Practices

**2024 Future Travel Awards: Jin Jiang Hotel’s Sustainable Success** **July 5, 2024, 18:27 [...]

**2024 Future Travel Awards: Jin Jiang Hotel’s Sustainable Success**

**July 5, 2024, 18:27 – Shanghai**

The 2024 Future Travel Awards celebrated the achievements in sustainable travel, with Jin Jiang Hotel taking the spotlight by winning the ‘Sustainable Travel Contribution Award’. This accolade recognized the hotel’s pioneering efforts in establishing a sustainable development model, setting a new benchmark for the industry’s green progress.

**Sustainable Initiatives Showcased**

At the event, Jin Jiang Hotel demonstrated its commitment to sustainability through interactive exhibits that highlighted initiatives such as linen recycling, replacing plastic with straw products, remanufacturing coffee grounds, and advocating for minimalist accommodation. These creative displays underscored the importance of sustainable hospitality practices.

**Roundtable Discussions**

Chen Kai, General Manager of Brand Strategy at Jin Jiang Hotel (China), and Huang Wenya, Brand Director of the Vacation Apartment Business Division at Jin Jiang Hotel (China), engaged in in-depth discussions with industry peers and media on two critical topics:

1. ‘How Far is the Sustainable Transformation Path of China’s Hotel Industry?’
2. ‘Exploration of the ‘Chinese Model’ for Future Travel Destinations’

**Multi-Functional Space and Interactive Experience**

The venue’s multi-functional space introduced the characteristic coffee of Jin Jiang’s Zhe Fei Hotel, offering attendees a pleasant and relaxed environment to interact and network.

**Jin Jiang Hotel’s Sustainability Efforts**

Chen Kai shared Jin Jiang Hotel’s journey as a sustainability leader in the hotel industry. The hotel has published ESG reports for two consecutive years and joined the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) in 2021 to initiate the ‘Hotel Sustainability Benchmark (HSB)’. As a founding initiator and promoter of HSB in China, Jin Jiang Hotel has established a special HSB working group and launched 8 key actions, including reducing energy and water consumption, using green cleaning products, and eliminating disposable plastic straws.

**HSB Verification Milestone**

Jin Jiang Hotel (China) has issued specific implementation guidelines, enabling HSB-verified practices to reach the frontline and empower hotel owners. Currently, over 3,500 hotels have passed HSB’s 8 benchmark verifications, with 10 hotels completing all 12.

**Sustainable Transformation Challenges**

Chen Kai acknowledged the short-term market contradiction between economic and environmental benefits in ESG practices. While environmental benefits can be quantified, not all measures yield immediate economic returns, requiring time for refinement and accumulation.

**Consumer Insights and Long-Term Confidence**

Jinjiang Hotels’ ‘Sustainable Insights Report’ revealed that 90% of nearly 5,000 consumers believe in the increasing importance of sustainability, are willing to use sustainable hotel labels, and consider sustainability a crucial factor in hotel selection. Chen Kai emphasized that sustainability should be a lifestyle, not just a topic.

**Leading the Industry Forward**

Despite the lack of unified and clear standards, Jinjiang Hotels is committed to taking the lead in practice, upholding the social responsibility of a leading enterprise, and championing sustainable development. The hotel aims to provide advanced experience, useful suggestions for industry standards, and contribute to society’s rhythmic and efficient progress.

**’Circulation’ Creative Interactive Exhibition**

Jinjiang Hotels (China Region) and TOURMEET presented a unique micro-exhibition focusing on the theme of ‘circulation’, vividly interpreting Jinjiang Hotels’ innovative practices in sustainable development. The exhibition is divided into three major parts, beginning with ‘The road to environmental protection starts from hotels’, showcasing the solid measures implemented in daily hotel operations.

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**Hotel Sustainability Benchmark (HSB) Explained**

And small tips are set up in a popular science way to help the audience deeply understand the ‘Hotel Sustainability Benchmark (HSB)’.

**The Game of Turning Waste into Treasure**

The exhibition area of ‘The game of turning waste into treasure’ takes the ‘standardized 4R module for recycling and remanufacturing of waste linens in Jinjiang Hotels’ (Retrieve – Regenerate – Redeem – Report) as a clue. It intuitively shows that a closed loop of linen recycling has been realized by building a smooth linen recycling link and pioneering the exploration of resource utilization of waste linens. In 2023, hotel brands under Jinjiang Hotels recycled more than 3 tons of waste linens. Through physical and chemical methods of recycling, waste linens are transformed into recycled fibers and products, giving old linens a second life and realizing efficient recycling of resources, effectively reducing energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions.

**Yuan Dian Plan**

Another highlight of this exhibition area is the ‘Yuan Dian Plan’ that Jinjiang Hotels has been deeply cultivating for many years. The project, based on the concept of a circular economy, recycles and disinfects used ‘six small items’ by hotel guests to create stationery boxes donated to children in need. To date, the ‘Genesis Plan’ has recycled 3.3 tons of materials, produced 15,000 stationery boxes, and benefited 9,610 children. This initiative not only promotes the reuse of resources but also conveys the social responsibility of environmental protection and education.

**Sustainable Hospitality in Action**

Additionally, the exhibition area showcases Jin Jiang Hotel (China)’s ESG series of action posters, such as ‘Subtraction Accommodation’ and ‘Clean Plate Campaign,’ conveying the concept of sustainable hospitality in multiple dimensions.

**Magic Journey: The Rebirth of Straw and Coffee Grounds**

The ‘Magic Journey: The Rebirth of Straw and Coffee Grounds’ themed exhibition area juxtaposes raw materials and recycled products in space, allowing visitors to more intuitively feel the potential for straw and coffee grounds recycling. Since 2023, Jin Jiang Hotel (China) has included straw material ‘six small items’ in its brand standards and gradually promoted their use in stores nationwide, with some brands completing a 100% replacement in 2023. Straw recycled products not only have the advantage of being degradable, effectively ‘reducing plastic,’ but also reduce environmental pollution caused by straw burning each year. In response to coffee grounds, the most common waste in hotel scenarios, brands such as Zebra and Magnolia, which focus on coffee culture under Jin Jiang Hotel (China), have begun to actively explore the recycling of coffee grounds. The ‘Coffee Grounds · Dry Landscape’ interactive section of the exhibition encourages visitors to use their creativity for artistic creation with coffee grounds. This design not only adds interest to the exhibition but also allows visitors to personally experience the fun and value of waste utilization.

**Zebra Hotel’s Coffee Experience Booth**

It is worth mentioning that the exhibition area extends to the Zebra Hotel’s coffee experience booth, allowing exhibition guests to immerse themselves in the charm of sustainable hospitality while also satisfying their taste buds.

**Brand-Specific ESG Projects**

Under the overall layout of Jin Jiang Hotel, major brands actively respond to the call, exert subjective initiative, and launch ESG projects with brand characteristics. For example, Jin Jiang Hotel’s resort series brands combine biodiversity protection, localization of social responsibility, industry-university-research collaboration, and characteristic ecological cultural tourism experiences. They issue biodiversity commitments, promote the organic integration of natural resources and hotel resources, and facilitate public education and mass communication of biodiversity. Jin Jiang Hotel proves with practice that sustainable development is not an unattainable ideal but a feasible goal that can be achieved through small actions in daily operations, providing a beneficial reference for the industry.

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