Disquieting rumours of Turkey first reached me in 1987, and I remember the year well because Whitney Houston wanted to dance with somebody (apparently), and Britain was being battered by a Hurricane…that was the year of the Big Wind. But this Turkey wasn’t the sort of bird to come trussed up on a table stuffed with sage and onion…this Turkey was different: it made lawyers go away and eliminated the kind of legal fees that can induce a nosebleed, all with a homely gobble…and this was how it did it. Two disputing parties would sit on either side of a long table, and a third chap (the umpire) laid out a vertical line of corn, then another horizontal line of corn at the top (imagine a large ‘T’ in the middle of the table). Then a turkey was plopped on the table and shown the vertical line…worked its way to the top of the ‘T’, and turned either right or left after the corn, and the party it pecked towards was the winner. Simple, cheap, and highly effective, and I’m not making it up.
Complex boundary disputes were apparently settled by Turkey, and so were claims for everything from debt and distraint to defamation. So, given I used to spend more time with lawyers than any man safely (or sanely) should, the subject of Turkey would come up every so often: lawyers talk of little other than law, and there’s only so much law to fill a conversation. And then one day, about thirty years later, I met a rubicund, wind-bitten farmer in Coleraine, Northern Ireland, and he’d actually taken part in several Turkeys, so the legend was true. It was an agricultural thing (which makes sense when you think about it…who else has a live turkey gobbling around the house)…and it wasn’t a turkey they used anyway; it was a chicken.
Now, bear with me on this.
The point is that any rational reader would naturally assume the tale of the Turkey is a lot of tosh, and if you’re not a farmer (possibly anyone other than a Coleraine farmer), it probably is tosh. But the Turkey has a core of truth, and that makes it worth paying attention to. And it’s a lesson worth learning, especially in an age of internet disinformation, trolling, and (let’s face it) more than a little actual, 22-carat tosh.
For example, the newspapers used to run a story most years listing the number and various causes of accidental deaths each year in the UK (compiled by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, or ROSPA (www.rospa.com), and a not insignificant number of these were reportedly caused by “falling off a sofa”. Now, speaking purely for myself, I find that difficult to believe. My own sofa is a maximum of fifteen inches from the ground (I measured it this morning for research purposes), and the ground (in my case) is covered with a soft carpet. Certainly, I might die in full repose watching television and then slump off the sofa, but otherwise, the physics don’t work for me. ROSPA, however, is an eminent research institution, so I factor their credibility in and go with them rather than stick with my instinct for tosh, just like I did after speaking with the Coleraine farmer.
These, then, are my tosh testing parameters, and I commend them to you.
Now let’s use them to test another much trumpeted piece of reporting, invariably sourced from the 2023 Sustainable Travel Report (www.booking.com)…
Is Sustainable Travel Tosh?
The Report found that a striking 74% of respondents place sustainability and green priorities at the top of their list when it comes to deciding how to travel and where to stay (when they get there…obviously). More than half of them (51%) felt there were inadequate green hospitality options on offer, with too few hotels putting sustainability (rather than greenwashing or the now ubiquitous green muting) at the heart of their operations: 44% didn’t even know how, or where, to look for more sustainable options.
The findings proved highly influential within the hospitality sector (to say the least) and have been widely interpreted since as underpinning two important trends (neither of which, to be fair, gets any prizes for deductive reasoning). First, consumers are increasingly demanding more sustainable travel options (“Trend One”); and secondly, a successful hotel facility (single outlet or group) now has to put sustainability firmly at the heart of its business plan (“Trend Two”). The message is abundantly clear: a hotel that doesn’t respond positively to Trend Two won’t be in business long.
So, let’s apply our tosh parameters (see above). How likely is it that someone who books a family of four on a thirteen-hour flight from London to Pune (not exactly an eco-friendly decision) will want to stay in a sustainable hotel when they get there? They might want a more sustainable travel option, but there isn’t one unless they drive (119 hours) or go most of the way to Mumbai in a boat (3 days): neither of those options is particularly sustainable or, indeed, realistic (for a two week holiday). So, where does this leave the 74% research catchment?
Well, it appears to chip away at the validity of the findings (especially Trend One), but the fact is that when our weary travellers finally arrive in Pune, they have a choice, meaning they also have practical options to exercise. And there’s no reason to believe they won’t seek out a sustainable hotel. In fact, chances are they will. After all, we’re currently facing an existential climate challenge, and nobody except the most wooden-headed flat-earthers would opt for extinction over sloth.
Which means there’s every reason to believe the future of hotel operations is green and sustainable, meaning hotels must respond proactively to Trend Two or face extinction themselves. It’s a fact…just like the Turkey and the fatal sofa.
Red Ribbon Phoenix Green Hotel Fund (www.redribbon.gi/phoenix-green-hotel)
The Red Ribbon Phoenix Green Hotel Fund was created specifically to respond proactively to changing patterns of market demand, driven by an undercurrent of increasing environmental awareness. The Fund is committed to developing and refurbishing UK Hotels that have ESG compliance built in from the ground up.
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