Green Getaways: Celebrating Earth Day with Eco-friendly Travel

Puerto Rico leads the country with the most green lodgings and the highest average customer reviews for eco-friendly properties. To celebrate Earth Day this year, Bright Data researchers analyzed the most eco-friendly lodgings in the U.S. according to information from TripAdvisor and Airbnb. Overall, Vermont, Connecticut, Kansas, North Dakota, and Puerto Rico have the highest percentage of green travel lodgings in the United States. With the travel and tourism market in the United States expected to hit $198.7bn this year, travelers interested in eco-friendly practices have some surprising destinations to add to their list. Researchers also uncovered the states with the best customer ratings for green lodgings, the best-rated eco-friendly properties, and hotel chains dedicated to green initiatives.

Methodology:

Researchers gathered data from tens of thousands of properties listed onTripadvisor and Airbnb to find areas the United States areas with highest number eco-friendly properties, the states with the best customer ratings for green lodgings, names of best-rated eco-friendly properties, and top hotel chains dedicated to green initiatives

For Tripadvisor, researchers used Bright Data Web-Unlocker to scrape lodging data in 443 U.S cities, all with a population of over 100,000 people. Web-Unlocker attempts multiple tiers of IP’s to gain access to websites and will even solve captchas websites produce to challenge non-human website interaction. The dataset was further refined by removing duplicates in the data from searching two cities nearby one another. Researchers also removed any lodging that did not have any reviews from the dataset. Data was gathered on the first 30 lodgings offered to travelers from Tripadvisor in each of the 443 cities for a total dataset of 11,704 hotels. Properties considered “green/eco-friendly” are Green Leader certified by Tripadvisor for their eco-friendly practices.

For Airbnb, researchers used the Bright Data marketplace dataset for Airbnb which includes scraped data on all Airbnb property listings in the United States for a total of 97,198 properties. Properties are considered “green/eco-friendly” if the description of the property included “eco-friendly”, “sustainable”, “green practices”, or “farm to table”. Only cities with a population of at least 100,000 were considered to align with the TripAdvisor dataset.

To determine states leading in green lodgings, researchers combined the Tripadvisor and Airbnb data and compared the percentage of eco-friendly properties to standard properties.

Findings

Travelers to Vermont are twice as likely to find eco-friendly lodgings than in any other state in the country. 14% of properties in Vermont are considered green.

Researchers created a heat map of green lodging destinations in the United States by examining the percentage of eco-friendly lodgings compared to all available properties.

Airbnb & TripAdvisor Eco-Friendly Travel Destinations

Full Table of Results

Connecticut is the second most eco-friendly state, with 7.2% of properties on TripAdvisor and Airbnb rated for green initiatives. Kansas and North Dakota followed at 6.8% and 6.6% respectively. Puerto Rico claimed the fifth spot with 6.4% of properties considered green.

Top Rated Green Hotels/Motels/BnBs in Top 5 States:

Researchers found the top-ranked green lodgings in the top states according to star ranking and number of reviews. Made INN Vermont ranked the highest with 5 stars and 896 traveler reviews.

Downloadable complete list of green hotels

Top Rated Green Airbnbs:

Downloadable complete list of green Airbnb’s

Highest Reviewed Green Leader States

Researchers analyzed and compiled a heat map of which states had the highest average traveler-rated Green Leader properties on Tripadvisor.

TripAdvisor GreenLeader Hotel Ratings

Full Table of Results

Puerto Rico has the highest number of traveler-rated eco-friendly properties, with an average of 4.4 stars. Interestingly, Idaho and Oklahoma are tied for the second-highest for green properties at 4.39, although they did not make the first list. Alaska at 4.33 and Wisconsin at 4.32 round out the top five. For these top states, Coqui del Mar Gay Hotel in Puerto Rico takes home the top spot, with a 5-star average and 609 reviews.

Top Eco-friendly Hotel Brands:

For travelers looking for an eco-friendly hotel chain, Marriott is the most likely to have a Green Leader certification, followed by Hyatt. Wyndham hotels were the least likely to be Green Leader certified at 4.1%.

Green Practices by Brand

	% Hotels with GreenLeaders Certification
Best Western	15.0%
Choice Hotels	4.7%
Hilton	13.5%
Hyatt	27.2%
IHG	10.1%
Marriott	42.0%
Radisson	7.1%
Wyndham	4.1%

Conclusion

Travelers interested in eco-friendly lodging will have the best chances of reserving a green property with excellent customer reviews in Puerto Rico, which made the top 5 list in both most eco-friendly stays and highest average customer ratings for green properties. Vermont, Connecticut, Kansas, and North Dakota offer the highest percentage of green properties. However, customers are more likely to give top marks to eco-friendly properties in Puerto Rico, Idaho, Oklahoma, Alaska, and Wisconsin. Finally, for travelers looking for major hotel chains, Marriott is the most likely to be Green Leader certified by Tripadvisor, followed by Hyatt, and Best Western.

About Bright Data:

Bright Data is the #1 web data platform. Fortune 500 companies, academic institutions, non-profits, and small businesses rely on Bright Data’s solutions to collect public web data in the most efficient, reliable, and flexible way to make faster, more informed business-critical decisions.