Site names cities with the most sustainable hotels, and SA bags five spots

Sustainability is a hot topic that is becoming more prevalent in all areas of life, even travel.

Using Booking.com’s sustainability badge, energy experts at price comparison company Uswitch set out to uncover the cities with the most sustainable hotels on the booking site, and SA nabbed five spots in the list of the top 50.

Recognising responsible travellers may be seeking sustainable accommodation options, Booking.com introduced a sustainability badge in November 2021 which is assigned to hotels that have applied to have their sustainability efforts recognised.

As part of this, they have to share data on a variety of environmental factors, including their carbon emissions, food and water consumption and waste.

To uncover the most sustainable hotels around the world, the eco-credentials of hotels in the world’s largest cities were compared.

To do this, the researchers used the sustainable filter available on Booking.com to determine how many eco-conscious hotels are available in each city and used this figure to give the city a percentage score.

Commenting on the results of the study, Will Owen, energy expert at Uswitch, said: “It’s brilliant to see that global awareness of the importance of living more sustainably is continually growing, and there are so many easy ways to reduce our impact on the planet, from using a green energy supplier to opting for more environmentally-friendly holidays.”

TOP RANKING CITIES

Two SA  destinations nabbed a spot in the top 10. With a score of 19.46%, Ekurhuleni came in at the ninth position with 217 sustainable hotels of a total of 1,115 and Johannesburg in tenth position with a score of 19.21%, or 132 of 687 hotels.

Further down the list in 16th position is Cape Town with a score of 16.45% (289 hotels of 1.757). Durban is in 29th position with 13.9% (52 of 374 hotels) and Pretoria 37th place with 12.72% (57 of 448 hotels).           

Canada bagged the most positions on the list, with Vancouver in the top spot, Toronto third, Calgary fourth, and Edmonton fifth. The second spot on the list went to the Swedish city Stockholm.

Lahore in Pakistan came in at sixth spot and the Columbian cities of Medellin and Bogota in seventh and eighth spots respectively.

• For the full list of the cities with the most sustainable hotels according to the research, visit uswitch.com.