Hotels

Understand where tourists are going, where there is opportunity and how to effectively market to conscious travellers.

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Our services for hotels, property developers & accommodation providers


From Business to Purpose-Driven Brand

Discover how to articulate your impact to customers in a way that makes them feel like heroes.

The problem

Right now, if a tourist wants to book a ‘sustainable' holiday, they're confronted with a certification they've never heard of, information about hotels with low-flush toilets and LED lightbulbs, a lot of reading, and the privilege of paying more for it.

Sustainable travel feels like a sacrifice because we describe it as such. It feels more expensive because we tell them about the extra costs. It feels boring, because, well, it is.

But it shouldn't be. Travel can have extraordinary impacts. Travel & tourism has lifted millions out of poverty. It has justified investment in heritage conservation, funded scientific research, and supports the livelihoods of millions.

Our solution

We offer a whole new approach to selling meaningful travel. One that helps your customers easily understand their impact, tell the story of why they chose your brand, and why it makes them feel like heroes.

Drawing on everything leading companies like Reformation, Tesla, and Patagonia get right in selling more sustainable products, we develop an exciting new way of marketing your business.

We'll switch the carbon labels of omnivore diets into an encouragement to eat oysters in Baja California. We'll highlight the chance of seeing a Harlequin Shrimp on a shore dive. And the fact that Piedmont has more DOCG wines than Tuscany anyway.

We integrate sustainability into the entire stay so seamlessly, the tourist won't even know it's happening. To them, it's just a better experience. A more authentically local one. One that's off-the-beaten-path. One they want to share with their family and friends.

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plotting establishments
plotting establishments

Know where tourists are going

The problem

One of the key challenges in popular destinations is assessing how overtourism impacts hospitality and real estate demand. Understanding where tourists are going—both the most popular hotspots and emerging destinations—is critical for making informed decisions about where to invest, develop, or adapt infrastructure. Pinpointing overcrowding hotspots and mapping visitor flows enables businesses to sustainably accommodate growing numbers while protecting the local appeal that draws travellers in the first place.

Our solution

We offer a scalable, near-real time system capable of geo-spatially locating tourists at the city-level. The system is reproducible, scalable, and verifiable. It is able to visualise both historic dynamics and be useful for estimating predictive patterns in near-real time.

How it works

The tool we built combines government, industry and alternative data sources (e.g. review data), to simulate tourism traffic using a geo-spatial histogram placed on a time series.

Equator’s demand mapping system was first tested in 2022 as most destinations were emerging from COVID-19. This tool allows users to:
  • Filter for types of tourism traffic, such as restaurants, bars, attractions, and lodging
  • Identify dynamics in demand, on a week-by-week basis
  • Determine demand down to 200 sqms
  • Compare cities on a case-by-case basis to ascertain extent of struggle

To ensure we meet the highest possible standards, we’ve tested and validated the results from this tool in multiple, separate control and standardised tests to ensure that the performance of our models are accurate (given the availability of data).

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Plotting Establishments

Below is a map of establishments related to Porto's travel and tourism sector, with filters that allow us to plot attractions, cafes, restaurants, bars, short-term rentals, among others.

plotting establishments

MAPPING DEMAND OVER TIME

The figure below is a visualization we used to predict tourism traffic in Porto post-COVID. On July 1st, our model predicted Porto would exceed it's 2019 record for tourist arrivals -which was confirmed by national statistics 4 months later.

mapping-demand

Identify investment opportunities

The problem

The rapid growth of short-term rentals worldwide has sparked important discussions about their impact on local communities and housing markets. For property developers, understanding the scale of this trend and its implications is critical, but mapping the extent of the issue is complex. The total supply and availability of short-term rentals in an area doesn't automatically signal a crisis. However, knowing where these rentals are concentrated can help developers identify gaps and opportunities for investment, such as areas where traditional accommodations like boutique hotels or serviced apartments could thrive. With shifting traveler preferences and tighter regulations on short-term rentals in many markets, hotels are making a strong comeback, offering developers a chance to capitalise on their renewed favourability and appeal.

Our solution

We have built a tool that can identify the extent to which short-term rental markets are exerting pressures on local populations by examining local population density, volumetric building data, satellite imagery, and hotel lodging data.

How it works

Using data from the Joint Research Centre's population census data, available data in short-term rental listings, data from Istat (among other public data warehouses), Equator generated an index that identifies the extent to which short-term rental markets are impacting the availability of housing for local residents. This system was first modelled for Venice then adapted to other cities, and can now be generated for over 40 cities worldwide.

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GLOBAL HUMAN SETTLEMENT LAYER, JRC, 2023

plotting establishments

Using publicly available data, like the Global Human Settlement Layer published by the Joint Research Centre at the European Commission, Equator is able to extrapolate the density of local populations in a designated area. In the figure below, is a snapshot of a visualization of what this population density looks like North Eastern Italy.

EQUATOR SHORT-TERM RENTAL DENSITY INDEX, VENICE, 2023

mapping-demand

By layering analyses, Equator is able to build a reproducible, scalable index that identifies both number of short-term rentals within a 100,000 sqm volumetric space, but also the extent to which that exerts a pressure on the availability of housing for the local population. Yellow, in this instance, is extreme pressure, while purple is low.


73% of global consumers believe brands have a responsibility to make a positive change in the world. (EY,2021)

Are you communicating your impact in a way that's interesting, engaging and memorable to your customers? Download our free guide.

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How to talk about sustainability