The certification trap: Why a logo won’t save your business

Everyone tells you to get certified, but without a strategy, that green sticker is a trap that wastes your time and money. Samantha Smits breaks down the hard truth: a logo won't magically bring you clients if your back-of-house is in chaos.

Sam breaks down:

• The Sticker on the Wall syndrome: Why many who get recognition at first do not see new clients till they change this.
• Why Western certification templates can fail in African and Asian contexts.
• Some big names mentioned: Travelife, Fairtrade Tourism, GSTC, and Green Key.

Connect with Samantha Smits on LinkedIn or her website.

Work with me: Are you a tourism leader looking to professionalise your operations and meet international certification standards? Let’s talk about how to protect your profit and give you your time back.

You can plan a call with me here.

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The Sustainability Edge is hosted by Samantha Smits, your guide to turning sustainability into a competitive edge.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Stop chasing such a logo to put on your website and hope it magically will resolve all your issues and magically will bring you all the clients because it absolutely can if you use it as it should. Hi, I'm Samantha Smith and welcome back to the Sustainability Edge, the tourism podcast. No Yargon, no fluff. We're breaking down sustainability and especially how to turn sustainability in a practical tool that gives you more profit, more time, stuff that's staying, and a business you can be proud of. Let's get started. Hello hello and good to have you here again. I promise no waste digging this time. But we will dive into something else, which is dividing and confusing many in tourism, probably even including you. It is everyone telling you to get certified. Certified in what? Certified in sustainable tourism. And hear me out, I do work with a bunch of certificates, but I believe I'm telling that for most businesses without a strategy or without some preparation, it could be a trap wasting time, money, and focus. So today let me tell you how to go about it and the pros and cons of certification. So we already have shared before that you're always super busy, you're just running your business, and at some point you're here about this thing called sustainability, and you already feel like, oh, I have to look into that too, or you're like, I would love to, but it's too much for me at the same time. And then to level up, when you are looking into sustainability, you are not being good enough because you're not certified. And you feel like, oh damn, I can never do things right, can I? Or how do I get into this as quickly as possible? And that is where it can honestly be a trap. So there is quite some market pressure to get such a logo from your partners or from some specific guest markets. And if you do not have a strategy, it's gonna be quite some paperwork with maybe not even some return on investment and a lot of confusion which certification or which label should I choose? Because believe me, there are hundreds, and not all come equal. And I have seen companies get a recognition or get a certification, and then all of those have to be renewed always. So then once that's needed, they get back to me and they're like, Hey, I didn't experience any benefits. And also have to check to tell them, of course, that's such a shame. And let me tell can you tell me what you've done after you got uh certified? And they say absolutely nothing, they have used it as a sticker on the wall. Hmm. That is definitely one of the reasons when it won't be doing something for you. A certification, when you're pursuing it, it should be part of your strategy. Because it can it can do a lot of things. I'm not working with some certificates for no reason, but the point is if you are ready to embrace sustainability or to work on it or to learn from it, and you're also ready to do the work that such a certification requires, then of course you're very welcome. But you if you expect that you can buy away into a certificate by being a buying a membership fee or just by paying a certification fee and just hoping for the best, that is going to be an absolute disaster. Work will have to be done, even if you believe you're already being very sustainable today, a proper certificate will always find something because it's such a learning journey. And then there's this issue with context. If I'm speaking to my listeners from the African continent here, I think there's always a lot of worry about hey, but all these certificates they come from the West, they come from the US or from Europe. How on earth would they work in Africa? Or if you're listening from Asia, wherever, you might have the same concern. Why would such a European list apply to us? And this is also what diversifies a good certificate from a bad one. As I believe good certificates allow for context, because there's no such thing that, for example, only Europe can be sustainable and the other continents cannot. That is nonsense. The point is that sustainability and sustainable practices can mean different things in every continent because there are different solutions, there are different realities. Businesses are run differently, there are different opportunities, and that should be allowed for different certificates to work. And really, good news, there are some where this really really works, and that's how I've picked the ones I usually work with. So, what what is actually a certificate? Some of you might ask. A certificate is a third party that actually has come with their own list or criteria, or has based it on some other organizations, which makes sustainability broken down more tangible. That part I really like because sustainability is so big and have it broken down into specific topics, specific actions, specific criteria can make it much easier to understand and for you to take steps in, and then they verify if they believe you do that. So usually that requires submitting evidence, writing answers, action plans, and an on-site audit to see if the reality matches your report. But if you go into that process by just an experimental sense of let's try this out, let's see where it goes, you might start to feel so overwhelmed and discouraged by the amount of feedback you can get, which always is meant to challenge you to be better, just like any business can grow in many many ways. But if you're not in it with the thought, okay, I'm going to have to make some changes, I'm going to have to improve myself, and there is a reason that I want a stiff kit, not just because it looks good on my website, but I want to use it for credibility, I want to use it to diversify myself, or there's a specific agent that I really have a good relationship that only works with those. Like if you have a proper reasoning for it and are willing to get your hands dirty to the process, absolutely go for it. But make it part of your business strategy. Also, in the example I gave earlier, if you have managed to go through this whole process and ideally at some point you're certified, what's next? Because being certified is not the final destination. Like I mentioned, these certificates are not valid forever because then you can just be sustainable for one day and become absolutely bad afterwards. They will always renew, let's say, every two to three years, and you have to go through a very similar process again, uploading new evidence, having a new audit, and everything that comes with that. Is that worth it for you? Can you commit to that? Do you really want to make lasting changes rather than have a one-day performance? You really have to include that as well when thinking about these things. And then after that, what are you going to do with the certificate? The point is you're also going to have to use your marketing, and of course, you can announce one time, hey, I got certified to this scheme, which is great. But you cannot re-announce that every week. You are going to have to be strategic with the content you put out, talking about every sustainable practice you have, why it matters to you, and then as a factor of trust, you can say that it's backed up by the certificate you achieved. So again, the certificate is something that's going to be interweaved in your company's strategy, your company's activities. It really will become part of what your company is, rather than just a sticker on the box. Something else that I see also regularly, that there is a single motivated person in a tool operator or an accommodation who really values and believes sustainability, and then is making everything work to do the report, but then once the auditor comes on site, they can see nothing triple down to the staff members, that it's a one-man show, and that in this case the company is not just one person, there's a whole team. Which is again part of your strategy. If you want to make sustainable changes and get certified for it, you have to be aware your team is going to have to be in it with you, because they're going to have to get trainings, they might have to change some of the procedures they follow in the work, the communication to your guests and what guests you even want to attract and what you give them, what you tell them before they arrive. It will affect a lot of parts in your businesses, I believe, for good, but you have to be open for that. Because if it's just a one-man show, it will not do anything. And in most cases, it will also not even help you to get certified because staff engagement is such a major part where certifications are looking at. And then there's also this argument used from a total different perspective where it's like, oh, but at this point so many are certified in my country. What is the value of actually still getting certified? I still believe if you're open to everything it includes, it will still give you credibility because you receive different clients than those people do that are already certified. You might have a different market, you might have different activities, you might have something that sets you apart. I mean, there's so many people traveling in this world. There's enough for everyone. Which means that even if you still get certified, if there's already plenty of others, it will only increase the quality. Talking about increasing quality, what you usually see in reviews, the things that people like, that people what people are usually positive about, there has been a study that indeed usually a certificate will not be specifically mentioned in a in a good review. They will not say, oh, this hotel was so good or the stupid was so good because this certificate. But every point that they do mention that they're happy about, what was provided to them, like the reusable drinking bottle, or all the expertise of the guide with not to be too close and all these things translate to a higher quality experience for your guest, which then are things that you have applied or refined because of that certificate. When choosing a certification, there's also differences. So let's say at the moment of recording this, I'm, for example, doing a lot of work with Treff Alive for two operators, and what I like about their system is they have an online management system where you already can pre-fill your answers. So you don't have to, like it's a school thesis, open a Word document and write an introduction and start from zero. They have answer boxes, upload opportunities, a lot of guidance and templates. So they kind of really help you to easily create this report for their review before they will ever send someone to your office, which is a much better guided experience, especially with the learning platform and the coach they assign you. Then Fair Trade Tourism has a very similar experience. They are very Africa focused and they work more for accommodations, food providers, and excursion providers, but they have a very similar platform to Travel Life where you can fill in everything beforehand. There's guidance, there's templates, and they have coach sessions, actually, like co-work. So there's a lot of guidance that you're not alone in this experience before they ever send someone to your office. Then there's others, if we talk about the mother of sustainability, maybe we could consider GCC, Global Sustainable Tourism Council. And they have defined a lot of standards that certifications are using today. But if you are pursuing their certification, which I first of all only recommend if you have the budget for it, so usually more of a higher-end brand, that they will directly go for certification on site. I mean they will directly go for audit, they will not have such a pre-written system. They immediately send an auditor. So for them, you have to be even more sure and confident that you are ready to receive this auditor because otherwise it's a lot of wasted money for this whole audit. And I believe that with something like Grinkey, for example, they're very clear on the website. Before you ever apply, they want you to comply with at least 70% of the criteria. So it all just signals that with certain schemes, there's more work beforehand, other schemes allow you to work while you are being a member and provide you with the guidance. There's also a bunch of consultants, something like I, for example, do, that give even more guidance than such a coaching system would allow. But you have to ask yourself if you are ready to invest time into that and a person, you're going to need a sustainability coordinator, and if you're welcome to receive feedback, if you're going to feel attacked, if you don't want to change the way you are doing things, then it's not for you. So really ask yourself that. Such a certification, it will not be a sticker. Yes, of course, in the end, you're going to get the logo which represents the work you have done, but that's what you know, it's a standard. It shows work you have done. And if your operation is already excellent and you're already doing a lot of sustainable things or are happy to implement those, it will just serve as evidence of the work that you do. And this also counts as another argument. Do you are you only sustainable when you're certified? No. There are a lot of companies in this world that are doing amazing work and sustainability that do not have certification. Maybe they don't need one. But at the same time, it is such a valuable tool. And not every scheme is the same. Some are more affordable than others. But if it's really something you're looking to explore, when you're talking about exploring, I would really go for a scheme that is going to give you a coach and give you all this before learning platform and the extra help that comes with it, or even hire a coach, a consultant. If you already feel like you're already doing a bunch of good stuff and you're more high-end and you immediately want to get down to it, then you go to a higher scheme, which immediately results to an audit, and then just have a consultant guide you through it or go through everything yourself. So do your research. And obviously, if you want me to help you with your research and help you recommend a certification that's best for you, do plan a call from the show notes, and I'm happy to help you with that. So as a promise to keep the episode short, stop chasing such a logo to put on your website and hope it magically will resolve all your issues and magically will bring you all the clients, because it absolutely can if you use it as it should. Because, like I mentioned, if you don't do the marketing with it afterwards, if you don't practice what you preach, if you don't renew it, it will be more work than reward for you. And it can bring so much rewards. I'm absolutely advocating for that, but you have to be down for that. So be strategic, and if you're ready for a certification, do plan a call with me. So happy to advise you to go down with what one and let's get to work. See you in the next episode. Thank you for listening, and congratulations on investing your time today to think strategically about your future, to make sure you never miss a step to understand sustainability better, how to grow your competitive edge. Follow the podcast right now, and if this was helpful, please leave a five star rating. It will help other people like you to find these tools. I'm Samantha Smith, and I'll see you in the next episode.