When a hotel asks the guest for a “green” decision, but the bill stays the same
In recent years, the hotel industry has increasingly been asking guests to take part in measures presented as sustainable: to skip daily room cleaning, to use towels for several days, to accept dispensers instead of small plastic bottles, or to give up part of single-use plastic. At first glance, these are reasonable steps in a sector that consumes significant amounts of energy, water, detergents and consumables. But precisely for that reason, this practice raises an uncomfortable question that is being asked ever more loudly in tourism: where does the real environmental benefit end, and where does shifting part of hotel costs onto the guest begin, without clear compensation, a discount or a measurable explanation of what is actually achieved by it.
Sustainability is no longer an add-on, but part of core business
The pressure on hotels to reduce their environmental footprint is neither invented nor insignificant. The accommodation sector is part of the wider tourism industry, which is facing growing demands for lower resource consumption, more transparent reporting and waste reduction. Through the Hotel Sustainability Basics initiative, the World Travel & Tourism Council sets out a set of 12 basic measures that hotels should introduce as an initial standard of sustainable business. Among them are more efficient energy and water management, waste reduction, responsible use of resources and clearer measurement of progress. The World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance further emphasizes the need for common indicators in the sector, including greenhouse gas emissions, water consumption, energy and waste, because without comparable data “green” business easily remains at the level of a marketing message.
Measurement is precisely the key difference between credible sustainability and the appearance of sustainability. When a hotel introduces a system for lower energy consumption, water recycling, a more efficient laundry, renewable energy sources or transparent waste monitoring, then one can speak of a business change that has a clear structure. When, however, sustainability is reduced almost exclusively to a message to the guest not to request room cleaning, the issue becomes more sensitive. Such a measure may have a positive effect, but by itself it does not prove that the hotel has changed the way it operates. Above all, it reduces the number of working hours of housekeepers, the consumption of cleaning products, the washing of bed linen and towels, and operating costs. That is not disputed, but it becomes disputed if all the benefit is attributed to the environment, while the financial saving remains invisible.
Towels, bed linen and cleaning: a small guest decision, a large operational saving
Programs for reusing towels and changing bed linen less frequently have existed in hotels for decades, but in the more recent period the tone and scope of these messages have changed. Once, such messages were discreet in the bathroom and related primarily to towel washing. Today, guests are increasingly asked to give up daily room cleaning entirely, sometimes through an app, a door card or a message at check-in. In some hotels, the guest receives loyalty points, a drink, a donation in their name or a small discount for this. In others, they receive nothing except the feeling that they have made the “right” decision.
From an ecological perspective, benefits may exist. Less washing means lower consumption of water, electricity and chemicals, and fewer staff entries into the room may reduce the consumption of consumables. But that does not mean every such practice is automatically sustainable in a broader sense. If a hotel charges the guest the same room price as before while at the same time reducing a service that was traditionally included in that price, a question of business fairness arises. A hotel room is not just a bed and a key, but a package of services: tidiness, hygiene, safety, maintenance and staff availability. If part of that package is reduced, the guest’s expectation to know why this is happening and where the saving goes is not unreasonable.
Scientific studies show that in-room messages can influence guest behavior, but also that information by itself is not enough for a serious reduction in consumption. A study published in 2025 in the journal Humanities and Social Sciences Communications analyzed hotel rooms in Mallorca equipped with digital water meters and found that an informational leaflet about saving water did not lead to a measurable reduction in direct water consumption in the room, although it influenced towel reuse. The authors also warned of a possible form of greenwashing if water-saving messages are used as proof of sustainability without a broader, measurable effect. This is an important note for the hotel industry: the guest can help, but the guest cannot be a substitute for systematic resource management.
Plastic is a visible problem, but it is not the only criterion
The situation is similar with the removal of small plastic bottles of shampoo, shower gel and lotion. Replacing single-use packaging with larger dispensers is in many cases a reasonable and justified measure. United Nations programs and partner organizations, including the Global Tourism Plastics Initiative, have for years been calling on tourism companies to remove problematic and unnecessary single-use plastic and introduce reusable, circular and better-controlled systems. According to reports by that initiative, hotel rooms, bathrooms and food and beverage services are among the areas in which replacements are most often sought for plastic that quickly becomes waste.
However, here too there is a difference between real change and a symbolic gesture. If a hotel removes small bottles but does not explain how the dispensers are filled, how hygiene is controlled, how much packaging is actually reduced and whether the new products have been procured through a more responsible supply chain, the sustainability claim remains partial. It is even more problematic when certain amenities are removed from the room with the explanation that this is about ecology, and then the same or similar products are charged additionally. In that case, the guest does not see environmental logic, but a new model of monetizing a service that was once included in the price.
Tourism cannot seriously deal with plastic only through bathroom cosmetics. Single-use plastic is present in delivery, breakfast, conference services, the minibar, cleaning, storage and logistics. That is why a hotel plastic-free policy makes sense only when it applies to the entire operational system, and not only to the items the guest can most easily see. Visible changes are important because they shape habits and expectations, but they must not serve as a screen for the absence of less visible, more expensive and more important investments.
Greenwashing is becoming a regulatory risk
In recent years, the European Union has significantly tightened the political and legal framework for environmental claims in advertising. Directive (EU) 2024/825, adopted on 28 February 2024, changes the rules on unfair commercial practices and consumer rights in order to better protect consumers from misleading claims related to sustainability. Member states must transpose its rules into national legislation, and key application is planned from 27 September 2026. In practice, this means that general claims such as “green”, “environmentally friendly” or “climate neutral” will no longer be able to be mere promotional slogans if they are not supported by clear, verifiable and relevant information.
The separate Green Claims Directive, which was supposed to further regulate explicit environmental claims and labelling schemes, has stalled in the legislative process. In its legislative monitoring, the European Parliament states that in June 2025 the Commission announced its intention to withdraw the proposal, that the third trilogue was cancelled, but that the proposal is still recorded as pending in the Commission work programme for 2026. Such a status does not mean that greenwashing rules have disappeared; on the contrary, existing consumer protection rules and the new Directive 2024/825 remain the relevant framework. For hotels, this means that all sustainability claims will have to be formulated more carefully, especially if they are used in room sales, on online platforms, in loyalty programs or in communication at check-in.
The hotel message “help the planet and skip cleaning” may sound harmless, but in the new regulatory environment such messages will increasingly have difficulty passing without context. If it is claimed that giving up cleaning saves water or reduces emissions, it is reasonable to expect that the hotel can explain the methodology: what the average saving per room is, on the basis of which data it was calculated, whether it relates to water, energy, detergents, working hours or waste, and what happens to the financial saving. Without this, the message remains a moral appeal to the guest, not transparent information.
Guests want sustainability, but they do not want the feeling of manipulation
Booking.com’s 2024 research, conducted among more than 31,000 travellers in 34 countries and territories, showed that a large share of travellers considers sustainability important, but also that fatigue is growing from complex, unclear or hard-to-verify messages. According to the published results, 83 percent of respondents stated that sustainable travel is important to them, while 45 percent said that sustainability is important but is not the primary criterion when planning or booking travel. This points to a dual challenge for hotels: sustainability is no longer irrelevant, but it is not enough to overwhelm guests with moral messages. Clear evidence, fair communication and the feeling that the burden of change has not been shifted unilaterally onto the buyer are needed.
It is precisely the feeling of fairness that is crucial. Guests are often willing to accept less plastic, less frequent towel changes or reasonable energy saving if they see that the hotel itself has taken serious steps. For example, a hotel that, alongside a towel reuse program, publishes annual data on water consumption, invests in a more efficient laundry, uses renewable energy sources and donates part of the saving to local ecological projects is perceived differently from a hotel that merely removes the cleaning service and leaves the price unchanged. Sustainability must be a relationship of trust, not a test of guest obedience.
The labour dimension of this topic should not be ignored either. Less cleaning can reduce pressure on resources, but it can also change the organization of work in a hotel. If the number of cleanings is reduced, but rooms that are cleaned after several days of disorder must be tidied faster and more intensively, the workload of staff does not necessarily have to be lower. If, however, the measures are used primarily to cut labour costs, then this is a business decision that should not be concealed exclusively in the language of ecology. Sustainability in hospitality does not refer only to water and plastic, but also to the quality of work, local communities, suppliers and the long-term resilience of business.
What transparent hotel practice should include
The fairest model is not necessarily daily cleaning at any cost, nor the complete abolition of the service under a green flag. A more transparent approach would be for the hotel to clearly state what is included in the room price, which services can be skipped, what effect this has and whether the guest receives something in return. This can be a direct discount, loyalty points, a voucher, a donation to a verifiable fund or simply the guest’s right to request without discomfort the full service they have paid for. The key is that the choice is real, and not shaped so that the guest feels guilty if they want a clean room, fresh towels or waste removal.
Good practice should also include measurable data. Instead of a general message “we protect the planet”, a hotel can publish how much it has reduced water consumption per occupied room, how much single-use plastic has been removed from operations, what the share of renewable energy is, how much waste is collected separately and who verifies those data. The WTTC basic criteria and the work of the World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance show that the sector already has tools for such measurement. The problem is not that hotels do not know which indicators should be monitored, but that market communication often stops at simpler, more emotional messages.
For guests, it is equally important that sustainability does not mean a silent reduction in standards. If cleaning is performed on request, this must be clearly stated before booking or at the latest at check-in. If towels are changed less frequently, there must be a simple way to request an exception for hygienic, health or practical reasons. If plastic products are removed, the replacements must be functional and safe. Sustainability that makes the guest’s stay more difficult, while offering neither explanation nor value, does not build trust in the long term.
The boundary between saving and sustainability
The hotel industry has a legitimate right to reduce costs and adapt services to new circumstances. Energy prices, labour shortages, regulator pressure and market expectations are indeed changing the business model of accommodation. But when a business saving is presented as the guest’s moral obligation, communication becomes problematic. Sustainability is not convincing if it comes down to the guest receiving less, the hotel spending less and the bill staying the same. It is convincing when reduced consumption can be proven, when the benefit is shared or clearly explained, and when the hotel shows that the measures do not end at the room door.
That is why the discussion about skipping cleaning, towels and plastic is not nitpicking about hotel comfort, but a test of the credibility of green claims in tourism. Hotels that take sustainability seriously will have more and more reasons to show data openly, because trust will become as important as location, price and star rating. Those that remain at the level of messages that impose guilt on the guest, and do not offer transparency, risk making the “green” decision look like ordinary saving at someone else’s expense.
Sources:- European Commission – Green Claims, framework for more credible environmental claims and consumer protection from greenwashing (link)- EUR-Lex – Directive (EU) 2024/825 on empowering consumers for the green transition and protection from unfair practices (link)- European Parliament – Legislative Train Schedule, status of the Green Claims Directive proposal and course of the legislative procedure (link)- World Travel & Tourism Council – Hotel Sustainability Basics, a set of basic indicators and measures for more sustainable hospitality (link)- World Sustainable Hospitality Alliance – Universal Sustainability KPIs, indicators for emissions, water, energy and waste in hospitality (link)- Global Tourism Plastics Initiative – progress report on eliminating problematic and unnecessary single-use plastic in tourism (link)- Booking.com – Sustainable Travel Data 2024, research on travellers’ attitudes toward sustainable travel (link)- Humanities and Social Sciences Communications / Nature – research on informational messages, water consumption and towel reuse in hotel rooms (link)
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