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Source: John Matthew, Pet Professional.
Planning and executing a trip, whether for business or pleasure, is at best an exercise in logistics. Toothbrush? Check. Plane tickets? Check. Squeaky toy? Check.
Squeaky toy?
As pets become an increasingly intimate member of the immediate family pet owners are increasingly including them in their travel plans. According to a survey by the Travel Industry Association of America, 14 per cent of US adults reported travelling with a pet on a trip of 80 km or more within the last three years. The business sense behind capitalizing on this trend is obvious when surveys, such as one from Starwood Hotel's & Resorts, indicated 37 per cent of pet owners would take their pets on more trips if they knew more hotels accepted pets and 76 per cent said they would be more loyal to a hotel chain that accepted pets even if they weren't travelling with their pet.
Accommodation providers have begun to answer the unique needs of this new class of traveller. With accommodation giants such as Cendant Corporation, parent company to such chains as Days Inn, Howard Johnson and Travelodge, allowing pets in half of their properties it is not hard to fathom how approximately 25,000 accommodation properties in the US and Canada identify themselves as "pet friendly" facilities.
With such a growing market having been identified to the point where some of the industry's largest players were acting upon it, one can imagine the disbelief generated within Scott Beddall when he was told that there was no authoritative compilation of these properties for travellers to resource while making their pet travel plans.
In 2003 Beddall had contacted Tourism British Columbia searching for a list of BC accommodation providers that accepted pets. While Tourism British Columbia could not provide such a list, as no such database then existed, they provided the motivation to create one. As Beddall and his team started to compile the database they began to be faced with more questions than answers, most deriving from the lack of agreement on exactly what the designation "pet friendly" meant. Travellers accompanied by pets complained of the difficulty in first finding pet friendly travel and accommodation providers and then of the differing levels of service and fees encountered. Providers cited difficulties in knowing exactly what services to provide to the market to be considered pet friendly and in marketing these services clearly to the travelling public.
The answer came in December of 2003 when Beddall, along with partners Andrew English and Carla Stewart, incorporated Pets Can Stay, providing the world's first regimented pet friendly accreditation service for accommodation providers. Beddall, director of operations, said the concept of "pet friendly" begged for standardization. "For some accommodation providers the term meant accepting pets, but they must be outside and on a chain," Beddall recalled. "And I'm not exaggerating, there were properties who signed up for our pilot project that had that policy in place. There was another one that accepted pets-in the parking garage. It was mindblowing."
It was not an easy start. Beddall explained that, despite the evidence, it was still a challenge to convince many accommodation providers of the necessity to cater to the pet market. In the end it came to down to a simple business proposition. "It was difficult getting hotels to understand that this was a market that was travelling more and more frequently, and also one that was becoming increasingly discerning regarding their travel choices," Beddall recalled. "It was no longer enough to simply accept pets-if you don't provide these travellers with a certain level of pet-related services and amenities, they will go next door to the hotel that does."
Pets Can Stay provides accommodation providers with two levels of certification, standard and premium. To maintain standard certification, accommodation providers are required to allow pets in designated rooms (including non-smoking ones), to charge fees that reflect reasonably expected extra costs associated with allowing pets in rooms (such as increased cleaning) and, on request, provide food and water bowls, pet policies and pet service provider contact information. In addition, for premium certification, providers provide extra services such as a treat or gift for the pet upon check in and one or more onsite or on-call pet services.
The Pets Can Stay label is no rubber stamp certification process. Beddall reported the certification process can take between two and three weeks, or even longer, depending on the applicant's previous experience and dedication to meeting the requirements. After certification, standards are verified by site inspections every two years. "This is for accommodation providers who are serious about targeting this market," Beddall explained. "And there is some effort involved and sometimes it means making policy or service changes to meet the standard."
By the end of 2004, 131 properties boasted Pets Can Stay certification.
Beddall predicted that number will approach the 300 mark by the end of this year. The number 300 not only represents an annual growth rate of nearly 130 per cent but also their first foray into certifying US properties; both of which Beddall predicted to grow substantially in the near future.
"Overall, the statistics point to a growth in the industry," he said. "This is especially tied in with the fact that as the baby boomer demographic is now reaching retirement, the kids are moved out, the pets are now a big part of the family and they don't want to travel without them. We're looking for this to grow significantly over the next few months." One of the first clients to receive certification was BC-based Accent Inn, a mid-priced accommodation provider with five locations throughout BC. Joan Murrell, director of sales and marketing, said pets had always been apart of the Accent Inn philosophy. "It's a philosophy of our owner," she said. "He has pets, has travelled with pets and understands that people do travel with pets and want to." Murrell reported the pet friendly philosophy made Pets Can Stay certification a natural step. "We did it because Pets Can Stay is aligned with Tourism British Columbia and is the only organization in Canada that you can go through if you offer pet rooms," she said. "It's a standard for us, gives us more exposure to that market than we would have had otherwise."
She reported that the impact of the certification has shown up in other places other than a sticker on the door, but also on the bottom line. Accent Inns had to expand the number of pet friendly rooms to meet the extra demand created by not only the certification but by the pet orientated travel agency provided through Pets Can Stay Travel Service, a division of Pets Can Stay.
"Because this is a full service travel agency we can do flights, car rentals, hotels etc," Beddall explained. "But what we've set up to make ourselves a little different is, as far as our accommodation booking service, it's free. People can use us, we can get the same rate or better as they could directly and we don't charge anything for that."
Beddall reinforced the rise of Pets Can Stay and the pet travel agency was not a rejection of traditional kennels. "This is nothing against boarding kennels, because there are some great facilities out there," Beddall explained. "Some people don't want to leave their pets behind because of the emotional attachment, pets are now seen as members of the family and people want them along on the family vacation."
Beddall could not predict the total number of properties Pets Can Stay anticipated certifying. "We don't have a goal in terms of an overall number, but instead in terms of caliber of properties. |
