DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — The importance of sustainability dominated discussion during the second day of the Arabian & African Hospitality Investment Conference.

Conference speakers emphasized that sustainability should no longer be secondary to profit-and-loss performance, or be a nice-to-have to make hoteliers feel better about themselves. Instead, it should be a concerted effort for the large operations and ownership firms, the government bodies and investors to band together and enact real solutions ahead of the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties — better known as COP26 — that runs in Glasgow, Scotland, between Oct. 31 and Nov. 12. That event has been delayed by more than a year due to COVID-19.

Naysayers will be left behind, attendees said. Crises traditionally have been color to the overriding focus on profitability, but the pandemic has changed that, with the charge now being to do what is right and hopefully to succeed profitably.

“Some hotels are no longer insurable because they are in areas that cannot be insured. How do we collaborate so we can solve challenges that are bigger than us?” said Brune Poirson, chief sustainability officer at Accor, who took up her role at the French hotel franchise company in May.

“We firmly need to commit to a net-zero level [of omissions]," said Inge Huijbrechts, global senior vice president of sustainability, security and corporate communications at Radisson Hotel Group. "Everyone is committed, everyone is setting up frameworks, but we need a collective commitment through collaboration in a non-competitive way. We need to take everyone along on the journey, and to also find solutions for the independent hotels around us.”

Financing also is ready and available, said Ibrahim Al-Zu’bi, chief sustainability officer at hotel ownership firm Majid Al Futtaim and chairperson of the corporate advisory board of the World Green Building Council.

“Net zero is not enough. The cherry on the cake is that we are doing well by doing good. I do not think we have an issue with access to capital [for such projects],” he said.

Anita Mendiratta, special adviser to the secretary general at the United Nations World Tourism Organization and a conference moderator, said that the next generation will inherit from their parents and families approximately $68.4 trillion over the next 25 years, according to consultancy bodies such as Cerulli Associates. That huge amount of capital will not be reinvested in projects that do not tick off those boxes of concern. Sustainability is high, if not highest, on that list.

Accor announced during the second day of the conference that it had joined the Sustainable Hospitality Alliance. Its members comprise approximately 25% of total rooms in the global hotel industry and include such heavyweights as Hilton, Hyatt Hotels Corp., IHG Hotels & Resorts, Marriott International and Radisson.

As the hotel world emerges from the greatest pandemic of nearly everyone’s lifetime, now is the time to act, speakers urged.

Mendiratta presented AHIC host Jonathan Worsley, chairman of Bench Events, with a letter of special recognition from Zurab Pololikashvili, secretary general of the United Nations World Tourism Organization. In the letter, he thanked Worsley for “stepping forward to keep the hospitality and tourism industry connected, informed, innovative and inspired from the outset of the pandemic.”

“Recovery in Africa will be choppy, partly due to the lack of [COVID-19] vaccinations. It will take a huge reset, but if things come together [the continent] has the demand and opportunity.”
— Hamza Farooqui, founder and CEO, Millat Investments

“A focus on cost is always the easy part, but trends are shifting so quickly and segmentation is so different, and those will shift again. Identify trends and invest money to better secure demand, and a different customer will arrive.”
— Gabriel von Bonsdorff, principal, hospitality investments and asset management, Investment Corporation of Dubai