The lodging industry is clearly undergoing a major shift in the way that business is done. Hotel owners and operators are seeing the clear bottom line impact of green building strategies as well as increased consumer demand. Increasingly, reliable third-party tools and verification is being used by hotels to ensure that they are getting the results they expect, both in building performance and in marketing and credibility. The U.S. Green Building Council’s LEED green building certification program is an instrumental tool moving the built environment towards sustainable building practices and is being widely used by the lodging industry for...

Luxury resorts and small motels alike benefit financially from being energy efficient. Cutting energy usage is good for the planet, it helps the economy, and it puts money in hotels’ pockets. However, while energy efficiency opportunities abound, they are frequently not taken. Why? In working with hotels, sustainability analysts at BlueMap Inc. found that many managers simply did not understand how fast the cost of wasting energy adds up to real money. In our experience, it is not unusual for hotels to save from $10,000 to well over $30,000 per year, per property, by employing the right measures. To...

I relish the times when I get out of the office to visit functioning laundries and speak with those in charge of the operations as well as the employees. These visits are important to see our company’s equipment in action. I always leave having learned something or at the very least having had a key point reinforced. Recently, my travels took me to Cavallo Point-The Lodge at Golden Gate in Sausalito, Calif. This unique, 142-room luxury hotel resort property, located in the shadow of the Golden Gate Bridge, has fully embraced green. Their task was tall and goals lofty in...

Hotels have become increasingly effective at improving the efficiency of their operations and conserving energy, many realizing meaningful energy savings and improved profitability. Such changes can also provide an opportunity to generate renewable energy on site with a photovoltaic (PV) system, displacing electricity that would have otherwise been purchased from a utility. Not to be confused with solar thermal systems that capture the heat of the sunlight warming the Earth, PV systems generate electricity from the sunlight. As solar electric PV technology continues to improve in efficiency, reliability, and become more accessible for various applications and situations, more hotels are...

With increased expectations from customers, attention from the media, and regulatory scrutiny, sustainability has made its way to the forefront of the hospitality industry. Sustainability has become a business imperative as lodging companies seek to improve operational efficiencies and respond to conscientious consumers as well as the actions of their competitors. A recent survey conducted by Deloitte reflects the expectations of business travelers that hospitality companies will adopt green policies. Of the more than 1,000 travelers surveyed, 34 percent said they seek out hotels that are environmentally friendly, and 38 percent have researched green lodging facilities either online or by...

There’s widespread consensus among the scientific community that human activities are altering the Earth’s climate through increased greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, causing the potential for large-scale adverse health, social, economic and ecological effects. There’s also an abundance of scientific evidence that many of the predicted environmental changes are now occurring. What may not be so clear is how climate change will affect the lodging industry in particular, what the industry can do to combat it and where you can start to do your part. The broad impacts of climate change could potentially have serious implications for the lodging industry as...

Cutting costs, enhancing cash flow and making wise investments while strengthening brands are at the heart of business decisions being made today by hoteliers operating properties both large and small. Old processes, old practices and old thinking are being tested and being challenged. With CEOs and CFOs pressed to find new ways to cut costs, they need only look to the enormous cost savings potential of refillable dispensers for guestroom baths. With a minimal investment, a single hotel will save thousands of dollars annually. If you have hundreds of hotels, the savings opportunity is too large not to investigate. Changing the...

For the hotel industry, energy savings can be one of the best ways to reduce cost while increasing guest satisfaction. The industry not only is being encouraged to switch its energy consumption practices to more environmentally friendly alternatives but also is being incentivized by local municipalities to implement these changes. Some states are going as far as offering tax breaks for businesses that are switching to more efficient lighting, like light-emitting diodes (LEDs) or compact fluorescent lights (CFLs). In many areas, matching funds also are available for energy saving programs. Those in the hotel industry are weighing the pros and cons...

It’s tough out there nowadays and there’s no denying it. This miserable economic climate that prevails has caused most hoteliers to write off 2009 with only hope that 2010 will be much better. But we can’t afford to keep our heads in the sand for a year and expect to pop it out and everything will be fine and dandy, as though we are waking up from a bad dream. That type of fairy dust just doesn’t occur in the real world. Hoteliers need to keep their head above water and do more than tread it—they need to find...

As hotel and restaurant operators prepare for post-9/11-like operating conditions, an effective way to reduce internal accounting costs and utility consumption is to adopt a sophisticated utility data management system. The majority of multi-unit hotel and restaurant operators have utility invoices sent to their headquarters where they are processed by internal accounts payable clerks or they are processed at the property level by management who should be focused on service delivery and revenue management. While on the surface the direct labor costs may make this seem like an efficient strategy, if one were to dive deeper into the indirect...