6 minute read
Interview - Attitude Hotels
COMMITTED TO TOURISM WITH A POSITIVE IMPACT
Sustainable Business Magazine speaks to Juliette Deloustal, Tourism Concept Developer in Sustainability at Attitude Hotels, about sustainability initiatives, cutting out single-use plastics and chemicals, and their Marine Discovery Centre.
By Elizabeth Cope
Attitude Hotels is a hospitality group with nine hotels situated in the north and east of Mauritius. Founded in 2008, Attitude Hotels started out with just the one hotel in the north, aiming to take the unique products of Mauritius and implement them within a family-friendly hotel. Attitude in a company with a purpose / mission. It became a company with a purpose in 2020. Today, each Attitude hotel, four 4-star, and four 3-star – has a different character, with the design process in each case being led by a local artist.
Thanks to a set of exclusively Mauritian stakeholders, Attitude ensure that the money generated by tourism can directly benefit the islands. “It’s a unique concept, with sustainable development actions and goals,” says Juliette Deloustal, Tourism Concept Developer in Sustainability at Attitude Hotels. “We love the traditions in Mauritius, and have tried to incorporate these as much as possible into the hotels. For example, the Kot Nou Restaurant, which is the Attitude signature restaurant, showcases local foods and meals, with all ingredients sourced from here on the islands, unless they cannot be produced locally. Moreover, our customers love our new branded, POZ spa, based on the fresh side of Mauritius. Here, you will find made-in-Mauritius products containing local ingredients like Chamarel coffee, spices, and more.”
POSITIVE IMPACT MOVEMENT
In 2020, Attitude launched the Positive Impact movement, a new cross-hotel sustainable tourism initiative. “It’s a collabo-
TO TARGET THEM”
rative approach,” explains Ms. Deloustal. “We realized that even if we are making a lot of effort, we can’t do it on our own. We developed this sustainability strategy for the group, so you have the commitments of every stakeholder along with the hotels. So, we have the commitments of Attitude, and we created charters for our partners and for our guests. This means they can join the movement, and act with us.”
At the heart of of our sustainability strategy are the traditional three pillars of sustainability: the environment, the community, and the local economy. “We make sure that every action we take respects the three pillars,” says Ms. Deloustal. “The first objective for the environment was to use zero single-use plastic in the guest experience. We achieved this one year ago. The second objective for the environment was to sign three partnership agreements between our Marine Discovery Centre and committed organizations, which we have also now achieved. Every time we have objectives, we make sure to go further within these three pillars.”
“We study the value chain, the carbon footprint, the figures, and we use digital tools to find out what types of actions produce the most carbon,” says Ms. Deloustal. “So we are sure to target the best areas of action so we can have a real impact. We study our consumptions of products, and furniture that we are buying, for example. Thanks to these tools, we know that a big impact in terms of carbon footprint is the consumption of meat and fish. As a result, we’re now offering more vegan and vegetarian options in the restaurants at one of our hotels. We are trying this out to make sure it runs properly, and to figure out the costs. If it works for the guests, then we can implement it in all of our hotels.”
PLASTIC POLLUTION
“We realized that plastic pollution is a real threat on a global scale,” says Ms. Deloustal. “We know that the most dangerous and impactful plastics are single-use ones, as they often can’t be recycled, so we decided to target them. I worked closely with the Chief of Operations Manager and Procurement Manager on that, to check our process of buying and make on-site audits. At the level group, we calculated that we moved more than 3.6 million single-use plastic items at group level. It was a huge job to identify an alternative because, most of the time, plastic is the easiest, most convenient, and cheapest solution.”
“So, in our rooms, in the showers or bathrooms, you won’t find single-use amenities,” explains Ms. Deloustal. “You will find dispensers instead. We remove most items like shower caps and slippers because we couldn’t find a good alternative. This goes
also for the minibar. In our hotels, we have bulk shops. So, the guest goes to the bulk shop where we have big, glass jars to take things like coffee and tea in bulk. They have an upcycled fabric bag which they can put their glass jars in and take it back to their rooms. We implement a time deposit system, so glass bottles or aluminum cans from beverages, for example, can be reused. Every client or guest can rent their own flask from a brand called Dopper, which will be cleaned at the end of their stay.”
COMMITTED TO REDUCING CHEMICALS
Attitude also reduced or removed the bulk of the chemicals that are traditionally used as part of the day-to-day operations of a hotel. “Initially, many of the products we had in the rooms and spas contained chemicals,” says Ms. Deloustal. “Now, it’s more like 95% natural; and at the spa it’s 100% natural for all the treatment products. We had to create these products with a local brand because we couldn’t find any supplier to provide 100% natural products. You just couldn’t find anything like this in the market. These created products are then available for visitors to buy at the spa.”
COLLABORATION AND CONSERVATION
10 years ago, Attitude began a partnership with a non-governmental organization (NGO) to start a Marine Discovery Centre at their Lagoon hotel at AnseLa-Raie. After the partnership ended, Attitude have continued the centre’s work. “We have one marine biologist on site,” says Ms. Deloustal. “She’s working with us on on the study of marine & coastal environment for sensitization projects. We have scientific programs with other local or regional NGOs. It’s a big success for the group because we could sign agreements with regional NGOs, and for Mauritius, it’s difficult to have the right to exchange that data with other countries. The centre is educational, and for the study of the lagoon. So our marine biologist will train more and more scuba diving centres, fishermen, and all users of the lagoon to ensure our behavior results in a minimal impact on the environment.”
“For the future, we want to work more in collaboration with suppliers to ensure we have more local products that fit in with our needs,” explains Ms. Deloustal. “At the moment, we still need to import a lot of goods and food. We want to continue to strengthen the local economy. Each year, we hold a musical competition to give visibility for local artists, and to offer them professional coaching. We have another smaller company called Otentik Investments where we look for local entrepreneurs in Mauritius that develop environmentally friendly products. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we had to cut back on some of these ventures, so we’re looking forward to getting them back up and running in the future.” c
