A couple I know has a son who has a severe form of autism. Yet, they recently traveled with him from Ohio to Florida. Chances are, you have hosted many people with autism at your property. The Autism community in the U.S. is approximately 25 million people. Did you know you can get your property certified as Autism Ready? The name of the organization that certifies for autism readiness is called Autism Double-Checked (ADC). Stamford Conn.-based ADC was founded in 2014 by two travel industry veterans. CEO Alan Day has over 20 years of experience in retail travel and—as the...

Increasingly, I have been reading about efforts to house the homeless in hotels or motels. As reported here on Green Lodging News, the Los Angeles City Council voted to reject a proposal that would have required hotels to make vacant rooms available to unhoused individuals. The measure now heads to the voters in November to decide whether this proposal becomes law. While housing the homeless in working hotels may not be the greatest idea, housing them in a former hotel makes a lot of sense if done right. I just read about a project in Asheville, N.C. that will see...

If you have an f&b operation in your hotel, even if it is just serving breakfast, you will benefit from a new guide from an organization called Beyond Plastics. The guide is titled, “Hold the Plastic, Please: A Restaurant’s Guide to Reducing Plastic.” The 47-page guide, which is free and available online for anyone to access, states that a shocking 44 percent of plastic litter in the ocean consists of takeout food and drink containers. (The second biggest source is fishing gear.) The Guide not only states the problem with plastics; it offers plastics reduction suggestions as well. The Guide begins...

Earlier this year in April, as reported here on Green Lodging News, the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) launched its Hotel Sustainability Basics. “Developed by the industry for the industry, it highlights 12 actions which are fundamental to hotel sustainability and will help raise the base level of sustainability across the entire hospitality industry by providing every hotel a starting point on their sustainability journey,” the WTTC announcement said. Of the 12 criteria, hotels need to comply with eight initially, while the others can be committed to and put in place within three years. Reuters just reported that more...

Is your property as disability friendly as it can be? MMGY Global just released a new research report, Portrait of Travelers with Disabilities: Mobility and Accessibility, which it hopes will act as a call to action for every industry so they can better understand and meet the needs of the millions of people who use mobility aids, as well as their traveling companions. The survey found lodging and transportation accessibility are cited as the two biggest barriers to travel for those with mobility issues. Nearly all respondents (96 percent) say they have faced an accommodation problem while traveling, while...

I frequently post about Scandic, the largest Nordic hotel operator. They have had a commitment to sustainability since 1993 and in 1996 began phasing out single-use plastic. In 2008 they began serving local water in sustainable, refillable bottles designed especially for Scandic. Today, almost 98 percent of its hotels use renewable electricity. I just recently learned that Scandic opened its largest hotel to date in Copenhagen, Denmark—Scandic Spectrum. It has 632 rooms and is certified according to the Nordic Swan Ecolabel’s tough new requirements. Scandic Spectrum offers modern facilities with a Nordic touch. Scandic Spectrum offers a large wellness area inspired by...

If you recycle PET plastic, and it is likely that you do, you should be aware of the goals of the PET Recycling Coalition, an initiative just launched by The Recycling Partnership. The Coalition’s work will focus on addressing four key opportunities to increase recycling of PET plastic: Increasing the capture of PET bottles; Broadening the acceptance of PET trays, cups, and clamshells in community recycling collection programs; Unlocking new supplies of recycled PET (rPET) for packaging manufacturers; and Strengthening recycling systems for pigmented and opaque PET. PET plastic is in high demand for use in textiles such as clothing...

In case you missed it, on June 21 the Los Angeles City Council approved a measure that will reduce the workload for hotel housekeepers. According to the Los Angeles Times, most hotels in the city of Los Angeles will be required to limit the daily workload of housekeepers, offer overtime pay under certain circumstances, provide “panic buttons” to protect their workers from sexual harassment and do away with policies that automatically forgo daily cleaning. Unite Here Local 11, a union representing Southern California hotel workers, filed more than 110,000 signatures on a petition to put the measure on the city’s November...

Thank you to Yasmine Mustafa, CEO & Co-Founder of Roar for Good, for guest blogging this week. NATIONAL REPORT—The hospitality industry provides a lot of opportunities, which is why so many people opt for a career in it. However, just like any other industry out there, it doesn’t come without risks. In fact, there are more than a few potential safety risks if you happen to work in a hotel, a hostel, a motel, or any other similar facility. It goes without saying, then, that as a hotel manager, you need to invest in different safety measures to keep your employees...

Treehugger and other publications such as GREENROOFS.COM recently reported that Montparnasse in the south of Paris has a new mixed-use project designed by French-Brazilian firm Triptyque Architecture: Villa M. It includes a hotel, coworking space, and a “dynamic healthcare-focused center.” For the project Triptyque won the Building of the Year 2022 award from ArchDaily. According to GREENROOFS.com, the hotel’s 67 rooms and six suites each bear the first name of a woman or man who has marked the history of medicine or science. The building is dramatically covered in plants. “We designed Villa M as a naturalist architectural manifesto: that is,...