As a hotelier, you are probably benchmarking most aspects of your business. For example, you already track how your average daily rate, your occupancy, and your RevPAR stack up against those of your competition. Benchmarking your hotel’s energy performance provides the same type of information, helping you to understand facility operations and compare your performance to your competitors while reducing operating costs. Now benchmarking energy performance is even easier, with a number of energy information service providers offering tools to automate the process, giving hoteliers easy access to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) energy performance rating system. As a...

As more and more hotels are seeking to implement environmentally-friendly practices, many are looking to certifications to help them achieve their goals. The ISO 14001 certification, which is applicable to business across many industries, provides a valuable management system and standards for an organization looking to implement environmental practices. Ewald Biemans, owner of Aruba’s Bucuti Beach Resort, recently answered some questions about ISO 14001 certification and why Bucuti chose to pursue it. What is the ISO 14001 Certification? The ISO 14001 certification was published by the International Standards Organization in 1996 and is essentially a road map for organizations seeking to...

Green products have inundated the marketplace and the number of companies making green claims has also exploded. The timing has never been better for the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to address green marketing claims so that consumers can trust that the products they purchase really do have the environmentally friendly attributes being marketed to them. On August 11, 2009, the FTC placed the green world on notice and charged several companies with making unsubstantiated, false and deceptive claims regarding bamboo fabric and other textile products that were being marketed as “green” and “environmentally friendly.” Why is this important to the...

Hotels and restaurants that have been taking steps to green their cleaning operations may mistakenly be setting back their green cleaning programs as a result of H1N1 and other public health concerns that have surfaced in recent years. The problem is that eradicating from surfaces the germs, bacteria, and pathogens that can spread these diseases often requires the use of powerful, EPA-registered, hospital-grade disinfectants which they erroneously believe cannot be part of a green cleaning program. In the United States today, there are no disinfectants that can be marketed or labeled as green. Currently, disinfectants are classified as pesticides, which are...

This is the first in a series of regular columns. It is the result of conversations with many top industry professionals regarding the greening of lodging properties. Throughout those discussions there were several threads regarding how best to make impactful, cost effective green measures happen. Engaging employees, developing a sound plan, and successfully implementing it all involve the human side of the organization, not just the hardware. In a service sector company, there is even more of a need to better understand the process, not just the products. Most travelers share similar experiences: sleeping in a strange bed, eating different...

Social media applications such as Facebook, You Tube and Linked In are becoming quite popular, but what is really making an impact, since Oprah Winfrey discovered it, is Twitter. Tweeting, as many refer to it, is sending a 140-character real-time virtual message from just about anywhere. You can send it from your cell phone or computer; wherever you are as long as you have the right applications. It’s quite easy. According to Nielsen Claritas, which provides in-depth segmentation analysis of consumer behavior, online data shows that about half of the U.S. population visited a social networking website in the last...

In recent years, the use of stone floors has dramatically increased. In fact, while attending a recent trade show in Las Vegas, I noticed that most of the newly remodeled hotels used stone for hard-surface floors, adding a touch of luxury and contemporary style. Ideal for the hospitality industry, there are actually two basic types of stone flooring: • Natural, such as granite, marble, slate, and limestone; and • Man-made, such as terrazzo and poured concrete. The most popular hard-surface flooring is granite. And, similar to its stone floor counterparts, granite is preferred in hotel properties because it can look great and, with...

The hospitality industry has been dramatically affected by the growing green movement. Sustainable, eco-friendly design and construction practices are now part of almost all major hotel building projects, including retrofits and property operations. Yet despite these changes, there are still many situations in which green cleaning is being overlooked. Hotel administrators and housekeeping departments must realize that sustainable building and design practices are just one piece of the puzzle. Maintaining a facility with outdated cleaning chemicals, tools or machines defeats the intended goal of green building and design, which is to operate facilities with less impact on the environment and...

Consumers think that recycling is about “stuff.” This is not true. The true value of recycling is not about materials—although it is good materials policy to recycle—it is about energy. Recycling saves a tremendous amount of energy and, as we all know in today’s world, energy equals pollution. Look at the materials that have a high recycling rate—aluminum being the best example—they are the materials that use a tremendous amount of energy to initially produce, thus recycling aluminum, glass, steel, paper etc… saves huge amounts of energy. Making something from recycled uses far less energy than making it out...

From restaurants to room service, bars to banquet halls, and catering to continental breakfasts, hotels offer a broad range of food service options. Since commercial kitchens and restaurants consume roughly 2.5 times more energy per square foot than other commercial building space types, any hotelier seeking to reduce energy consumption and costs cannot ignore food service operations when designing an energy management strategy. ENERGY STAR estimates that the total savings potential in a commercial kitchen ranges from 10 percent to 30 percent, based on the technologies installed and the overall energy management strategies put in place. By making energy-efficient choices...