Net-Positive Hospitality
About
This project was an exercise in sustainability consulting, using a real brand as a potential client. Our "client", Hotel Bardo, is a boutique hotel in Savannah, Ga.
During the project, our team compiled secondary research to understand the brand and gather information about how it operates, as well as conducting user interviews to understand potential guests.
Finally, with all of that data, we created a potential plan which the hotel could follow through it's timeline to achieve a more sustainable business, as well as help to foster a regenerative economy within the city of Savannah's tourism industry.
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Tools
Methods
Circular Design
Sustainability SWOT
User Research
AUUDIO Analysis
Asset-Based Community Development
Book Design
Challenges
The scope of this project was enormous! The biggest challenge at the start was trying to find as much information as possible about the hotel's practices and trying to piece together a starting point for our recommendations. Because we were only working with a client in spirit, we couldn't ask them directly about things like their supply chain and what the practices of their vendors were (for example). This was also my first time completing something like an AUUDIO Analysis, which investigates a Business's practices, the practices of their upstream (suppliers), and the downstream effects of the business (user behaviors being a significant one for us), and looked at those aspects through different lenses including Climate Change, Biodiversity, Waste Management, and Social Impacts.
As we progressed through the project, it became clear that, even though we were creating solutions that would benefit Hotel Bardo in the long-run, we really wanted to have an impact on the city, the ecosystem, that the business had its roots in. With that mentality, we zoomed out a bit to see what the tourism impact and benefit were to the city and the locals who lived there. This revealed quite a bit of potential leverage for us to encourage the growth of an organization that worked hand-in-hand with all of the potential stakeholders, including the people of Savannah, local government, schools, AND the businesses within the hospitality/ tourism industry. Using some ideas in Asset-Based Community Development, we created a plan for the implementation of such an organization, potentially giving everyone a voice in the process.
One of the most crucial challenges to work around in an online degree is scheduling the time to work together as a team outside of class time. We established an effective communication structure and, though there were a few bumps on occasion, we clearly defined all members' tasks and due dates. This allowed us to have everything completed, especially when something came up and one of us needed to their work covered.
Deliverables
Project Book
Conference Poster
Impact and Learning
This project, and class, was wildly valuable. It really set the tone for my understanding of what it means for a business to be sustainable, or even regenerative. Acquiring all of these frameworks and tools for auditing a business or organization with these ideas in mind allows me to see these entities in a new light, as potential change-makers for a society that actually benefits the people living in it.