What do I tell?

Make sustainability entertaining and participatory to create meaningful memories.

Help your customers to enjoy themselves and to experience ‘hands on’ what makes your business special. Simple, fun words are more likely to sell. And invite your customers to participate in things they can relate to.

Doing is more fun than watching, so give your customer the chance to pick their own lunch: It will taste all the better for it and become much memorable. 

Why not develop a family quiz to help your customers explore the places they visit and learn more about them? You could offer a nature, town or city trail that leaves from your front door. 

Consider inviting them to participate in activities they can relate to, be it historic homes, there’s a good reason the kitchens attract as much attention as the stately rooms. Likewise, allow the children to use the dressing-up box in the servants’ hall and see how much fun they will have! 

It’s often effective to position things differently depending on your audience. Fresh farm eggs might mean traditions and nostalgia to the older market, but to young families they present an opportunity for children to learn where food comes from. Just calling them ‘sustainable eggs’ means nothing to anybody. And always remember to use the right words and messages for your chosen target audience. This will mean changing the way you describe things, according to whom is listening.



 

Holidays are times to put yourself first, while business travellers will want you to get things right quickly.

Put the customer at the centre of the experience: what’s in it for them? Word your information thinking about how you want your customers to feel, instead of listing your product’s features or attributes. 

Write about sustainability in terms of pampering – as having something unique about looking after your customers. Find ways of showing that the business is looked after, to provide a ‘feel good factor’. 

It’s both what you say and how you say it that matters. 

What will sell more? 

• Fresh, unadulterated, honest food that makes holidaying memorable, or; 
• Food miles and supporting the local economy.

In leisure and tourism, nostalgia sells because it is comforting

When the environment and society seem under threat, people get nostalgic and value tradition. This is your opportunity to show you share their worries about the future and emphasise your authenticity. 

Health, environmental and financial crises have an impact on our views of the world and on our behaviours. This can lead to negative emotions such as feeling depressed, or positive actions such as finding new ways to help the planet or save money. 

But, for most people, one thing that tends to happen consistently in a crisis is a feeling of nostalgia and valuing tradition. Sustainability plays an important role because of its core principle to preserve resources for future generations. 

“Nostalgia tourism – driven by consumers’ uncertainty about the future – will play a role in choosing leisure and tourism activities due to its wider links to authenticity and meaning”, according to VisitEngland. 

Nostalgic tourists look for real experiences where nostalgia is not a reason to be sad, but rather, to appreciate local history, tradition, and customs with people that care about preserving them. 

This nostalgia can be helpful when promoting ‘staycations’ and domestic holidays, and it can also attract international tourists to mature destinations like England. 

Directly or indirectly, use messages that will attract customers by showing that you share the same worries and values as them. Make them feel your business values tradition and has something comforting to offer.