The topic of sustainability is omnipresent these days. Consuming and living as environmentally friendly as possible has become an important goal for most people. The sustainability aspect also plays a major role for many holidaymakers when choosing a holiday home. By offering a holiday apartment or a holiday house, you are already making an important contribution to sustainable tourism. According to a study by the WWF, a stay in such holiday accommodation is already much more environmentally friendly than in a hotel.
In this article you will learn how you can increase the sustainability of your holiday house or holiday apartment through various measures. This is not only good for the environment, but earns you points with your guests, too. Moreover, you occupy an important niche that holidaymakers often actively search for on the portals of our sales network. In addition, the use of renewable energies can bring you substantial financial savings. So you can only profit!
Add information on sustainability in the owner area
Include the measures you take to ensure the sustainability of your holiday home in the owner area. This makes it easier for guests to find your holiday home when they are looking for sustainable accommodation. You can add the following features to your holiday home:
- Waste recycling: Waste separation through separate waste bins is possible
- Organic waste bin available
- Renewable energy is used
- Solar energy is used
- Water-saving appliances are used
- House insulation available
- Free bicycle is offered
- Charging station for electric cars available
In your description text, you should also make sure to mention any measures you are taking to ensure sustainability. In the case of particularly popular features, such as a charging station for electric cars, an energy self-sufficient house, or accommodation on an organic farm, it is also a good idea to highlight them specifically in the title of your holiday home.
10 tips for more sustainability
And now for the concrete tips and measures for more sustainability that you can take. If you put some of these suggestions into practice in your holiday home, you have already taken important steps towards sustainability. We wish you every success in doing so!
1. Use energy-saving appliances
An uncomplicated but very effective step towards sustainability is to use energy-saving light bulbs. Replace your current lights with LED or CFL bulbs and reduce your electricity costs.
You should also consider replacing the conventional household appliances in your holiday home, especially if they are already getting on in years or no longer work properly. These are often real power guzzlers. You can recognise good energy- and water-saving alternatives - for large household appliances such as refrigerators and washing machines - by the EU energy label with different efficiency classes. In the long run, buying environmentally friendly appliances will save you a lot of money on your electricity bill, which will make you and your guests happy!
2. Promote active waste separation
Most people now take care to separate their waste. This should also be possible in your holiday home. It is important that you provide clearly separated and clearly marked waste containers for plastic, paper, organic waste, and glass so that your guests do not have to take care of this themselves during their holiday. If feasible, an organic compost in the garden is a great bonus point. To ensure that your guests adhere to waste separation during their stay, you can refer to this in the house rules and / or guest folder.
3. Heat energy efficiently
You can also save a lot of money by heating properly. Heating or cooling systems account for up to 40 percent of the total energy consumption of an accommodation. Make sure that the radiators in your home are free-standing and not covered by furniture, fabric, or decoration, for example, so that the heat can spread well throughout the room. In addition, the right window furnishings are worth their weight in gold. Special energy-saving roller blinds or venetian blinds have an insulating effect and help to protect the apartment from heat in summer and warmth loss in winter.
You might ask your guests in person or in the guest folder to turn down the heating a little, but not completely, if they are going to be out of the house for a while. There is also the option of buying thermostats that can be controlled via smartphone apps, which also offers significant savings.
4. Switch to green electricity
To sustainably reduce the electricity consumption in your holiday home, you can also consider switching to a green electricity tariff. However, before you choose a provider, you should inform yourself comprehensively and make sure that you are actually contributing to environmental protection by using the tariff. It is important that the provider in question is demonstrably committed to a sustainable energy supply.
5. Install a solar system
A solar system is, of course, a larger and more costly purchase. However, the energy and money savings achieved are so enormous that this step it is worth considering. A photovoltaic system or a solar thermal system on the roof of your holiday home will generate either electricity or hot water, completely without pollutants. Thus, you make a valuable contribution to the environment – which is a big plus point for some potential guests when choosing their holiday home.
In summer, solar systems usually produce more electricity than is actually needed in the household. You can pass this surplus on to the public grid and receive a feed-in tariff for it. In this way, you even earn money when your holiday home is empty. There is also the option of storing the surplus electricity in a battery storage system and using it later.
6. Promote environmentally friendly transport
Even if your guests arrive by car, you can make a small contribution to encouraging them to leave it behind during their stay and get around in a more environmentally friendly way. It is best to inform your guests about the public transport connections before they arrive and display bus and train timetables in the holiday home. You offer an outstanding service if you even provide bicycles for rent. This will please your guests and the environment! A cooperation with a local bicycle rental company is also an option.
7. Save water
It could not be simpler: set up a rain barrel and use the water that accumulates in it for the garden. This way you save a lot of precious drinking water from the tap. With special rainwater systems, you can also use the collected water in the household wherever drinking water quality is not required, for example in the washing machine.
Special shower heads or inserts for them also make saving water simple and effective. In addition, you can ask your guests to use their towels more than once for the sake of the environment by placing notices in the guest folder or on small signs in the bathroom.
8. Promote consumption of local products
Your guest folder ideally provides extensive and useful information not only about your holiday home but also its surroundings. To promote sustainable business, you can, for example, point out local weekly markets or shops that sell regionally grown products. This way you make a small contribution to improving the ecological footprint of your guests while they are staying in your holiday home.
Another idea: If your holiday home has a garden, you could plant organic fruit and vegetables there yourself and make them available to your guests. Maybe some of them would even like to participate in the gardening.
9. Install house insulation / thermal insulation
Whether from the inside or the outside: a more costly but worthwhile measure in a renovation project that may be pending anyway is the thermal insulation of the house. Many insulation measures pay for themselves after only a few years. A thermally insulated house not only needs to be heated less intensively, but also does not heat up as quickly in summer and can offer a better indoor climate.
When choosing insulation materials, the following applies: conventional material is cheaper, but ecological insulation materials are more environmentally friendly and often better for your health. Make sure that the windows are well insulated, for example with triple glazing.
10. Provide a charging station for electric cars
The traffic turnaround is in full swing: more and more people are changing over and driving with electric power - even on holiday. For such guests, a charging station for their own vehicle directly at the holiday home is an important decision-making feature when choosing accommodation. The most cost-effective models are already available from 800 euros. If you decide to install a charging station, you will create an important unique selling point for your holiday home and set yourself apart from your competitors. This service concept is sure to go down very well with your environmentally conscious guests!
