5 Benefits of Having An Onsite Garden at Your Accommodation

Photo by Vitaly Sacred

As travelers become increasingly eco-conscious, many accommodation owners continue to look for ways to reduce costs and cut their carbon footprints. One such way is to introduce an onsite garden, which can have ample environmental and cost-saving benefits (and not to mention offer a relaxing haven for your guests).

Whether you run a hotel, campsite, or a series of chalets or cottages, an onsite garden can be a winning selling-point for prospective bookers and improve your accommodation’s sustainability credentials. Even if you’re the owner of a high-rise inner-city hotel, have you thought about the benefits of a rooftop garden?

In this post, we explore 5 tangible benefits of introducing an onsite garden to your accommodation.

1. Sustainable sourcing of produce

One of the primary environmental benefits of an onsite garden in tourist accommodation is that you can introduce a fruit or vegetable patch and grow your own produce on the premises. If your accommodation has an onsite restaurant or cafe, this is a low-cost, sustainable way to stock up on fresh ingredients and create a tasty, varied menu — with plenty of plant-based options for vegetarian and vegan guests. 

The benefits here are at least three-fold:

• You can grow and source produce sustainably, reducing emissions by decreasing the number of food deliveries to your site.

• You can reduce your costs by growing ingredients yourself and not having to source these from external suppliers.

• Your guests are provided with fresh, local produce, which will improve the quality of your menu and give your guests an authentic experience of the local area.

2. Water recycling

While recycled rainwater shouldn’t be used for drinking, showering or bathing, it can be repurposed for things such as toilet flushing, laundry or irrigation. This can reduce water demand, promote self-sufficiency, and ease the burden on your main water supply, while also saving energy costs in the long run. 

By implementing an onsite garden, you can install a rainwater harvesting system to distribute water where it’s needed. This system — already widely-used in countries such as Germany and Australia — enables you to collect and store rainwater for future use, and while installation will require a considerable up-front investment, the long-term cost-saving and environmental benefits will be ample. 

3. A haven for local wildlife

A garden provides a safe haven for local critters and seasonal visitors, including birds and insects, so why not implement a mini hotel within a hotel? Bees are one of the world’s most important pollinators — one in three mouthfuls of the food we eat is dependent on pollinators such as bees — but they’re under threat from human activities such as large-scale agricultural practices, so it’s vital that we offer them safe spaces for shelter.

Bee hotels — as well as bee houses, biomes and barrels (an “air bee-n-bee”, if you will) — provide our essential pollinators with safe nesting places, protecting them from habitat destruction and offering shelter against the elements. The extinction of bees would be catastrophic for the earth’s ecosystem, but by introducing a home for these winged crusaders you can help ensure their preservation. 

4. Biodiversity tours

If you have a large onsite garden — perhaps your accommodation is set within many acres of green space — why not offer your guests a mini tour of the area, explaining why it’s a biodiversity hotspot and pointing out all the different flora and fauna that inhabit the space? Not only will this be a pleasant way for your guests to spend an afternoon, but it may help you generate a little extra income while promoting sustainability and stressing the importance of preserving natural spaces. 

5. A place for guests to relax

Aside from the multiple environmental benefits of an onsite garden, it can also offer your guests a pleasant and peaceful place to relax during their break — that might be ideal if you’re based in a busy city and you want to enable your guests to escape the hustle and bustle for an hour or two. Add a few benches, deck chairs or even an outdoor sofa to create a place to unwind. 

You could even devise a combined garden-restaurant or cafe, offering hot drinks, snacks and light lunches, so your guests can enjoy all the sights and sounds of the surrounding plants and wildlife while tucking into a slice of cake or sipping on a cappuccino. Your guests may never want to set foot outside your accommodation!

There are clearly many reasons that more and more accommodation owners are considering implementing an onsite garden, with multiple environmental and tourism-specific benefits. Whether you run a rural campsite or an inner-city hotel, a garden can help you to source produce sustainably, provide a safe space for local wildlife to flourish, and offer your guests a place to unwind among nature.

Sea Going Green is a sustainable tourism consultancy working with hotels and tourism operators to develop in-demand tourism offerings and services that bridge sustainability together with the latest trends like the farm-to-table concept.

Want to know more about what we can do for you? Get in touch.