ORLANDO, FLA.—Going green is the right thing to do, and few understand that better than The Florida Hotel and Conference Center, which will soon receive Green Lodging certification from the State of Florida for its conservation practices. The luxurious Florida Hotel and Conference Center, which is connected to Orlando tourist attraction the Florida Mall, has significantly reduced its water and energy usage since it began working on its Green Lodging Certificate earlier this year.
“Going green is a sweeping trend within the meetings industry and it is simply the right thing to do,” stated Simone Kuska, corporate director of sales and marketing for the hotel’s management company, Edinburgh Management. “According to a recent survey, 67 percent of meeting planners take environmental issues into consideration when selecting a meeting destination, so we are in the green game for years to come.”
The Florida Hotel and Conference Center will soon be one of only 50 hotels in the state that have achieved the Green Lodging certification. The Florida Department of Environmental Protection’s Green Lodging Program was designed to protect and preserve Florida’s natural resources through the hotel industry’s water conservation efforts, energy savings programs, and other environmental efforts. Hotels that choose to participate in the Green Lodging program must go through rigorous steps to obtain certification.
The Florida Hotel and Conference Center is drastically reducing its energy footprint through several environmental programs, including a towel reuse program in its guestrooms; a property-wide trash recycling program; replacing all standard guestroom light bulbs with Energy Star compact fluorescent bulbs; and installing guestroom shampoo and body wash dispensers, which will eliminate having to dispose of thousands of amenity bottles.
The Florida Hotel and Conference Center includes 510 guestrooms and suites and includes more than 50,000 square feet of meeting space. The property is within close proximity to the Orange County Convention Center, downtown Orlando and Orlando International Airport.
