As green options in the meeting and conference industry expand, environmentally conscious event planners, organizers and companies are finding that going green not only helps save the planet and resources, but also offers a wealth of other benefits and advantages. As the following questions and answers demonstrate, green meetings can help save the planet and yield real rewards for meeting attendees and your budget. What Exactly is a Green Meeting? After convening a task force on this topic, the Convention Industry Council presented this definition: “A green meeting or event incorporates environmental considerations to minimize its negative impact on the environment.”...

With the recent push by the White House to address environmental issues, energy conservation has, once again, come into sharp focus. Some hotels do nothing to conserve energy, while others make a cursory effort at it. The fact is that for some nominal cost and effort, real energy savings can be gained, along with the hotel doing its part to reduce greenhouse gases. The two biggest energy costs in a hotel are lighting and heating. The other two, air conditioning and “base load” (fans, motors, etc.) are also significant. Lighting can account for up to 30 percent of a hotel’s...

NATIONAL REPORT—When looking for ways to green your hotel, one of the first things you should focus on is energy efficiency. Pure economics show it is cheaper to save a kilowatt hour then it is to produce it. Couple this with reduced carbon emissions, and efficiency is one of the first things a property should consider, even before looking at renewable energy sources. The first energy conservation measure that should be evaluated in hospitality, whether it is a small 100-room property or a large destination resort, is lighting. Common lighting opportunities include T-12 to T-8 or super T-8 linear fluorescent...

The world of green business seems to have come out of nowhere to dominate magazine and newspaper coverage. The media calls and e-mails have been arriving fast and furious—a dozen or more each week, even more than a month after Earth Day. CNN, the New York Times, Business Week, Advertising Age, Good Morning America, the Sundance Channel, Reuters, the Discovery Channel, Marketplace radio, and a slew of local papers. A surprising number seem to have some variation of the same two questions: Is all of this focus on the greening of business merely a fad? When will the bubble burst?...

You’ve taken the plunge and greened your hotel. Now, how do you make people aware that your hotel meets their standards? How do you reach your most important target market—the eco-conscious, often referred to as geo-tourist? If your hotel is located in one of the states that has few, if any, green hotels, this may prove to be an easier feat. You won’t have to contend with an overcrowded marketplace and heavy competition. One of the first things you need to do is determine what knowledge point or base you are starting from with the media. This can easily be...

A hotel housekeeper, ignoring the strong odors that filled the guestroom as she worked, always scrubbed the shower stalls with a commercial cleaner she had used for years. The housekeeper liked the product because it was powerful and effective, cutting her cleaning time considerably. However, one day she began coughing uncontrollably. It was then that she wondered if this “tried and true” product might be more harmful to her health than she ever thought. In addition, she realized that although she had read the directions on how to use the product, she never read anything more on the label such...

Hotels spend a sizeable sum maintaining their landscapes. Maintenance steps include: pre-emergent, post emergent, herbicides, mowing, trimming and a host of other “necessities” that grounds personnel consider to be part of a well maintained site. What if you could slash the budget for these items by making your own maintenance products? And, what if these products rid the site of fire ants, erosion, and even create some great benefits like birds and butterflies? What if these cost saving products also reduce the watering needs of the plants? Here are a few tips to help you benefit from items you...

I believe we are at a critical moment when “green” will become more important than anyone ever imagined—with better results for all our lives and no less phenomenal growth. For those who are pioneering the movement, green hotels are more than just politically correct properties. They inspire guests, connect communities, and yes, they are profitable. Profitable? Yes! Profitable! A few years ago everyone asked how you could possibly afford to go green because of premium costs without premium revenues. Now, the question may have turned. Can you afford NOT to build green? And the answer may surprise you. So What are...

A newspaper left at the guestroom door every morning is a fabulous courtesy. But the tendency not to recycle the newspapers is not a great courtesy to the Earth and to future generations. I would like to promote better recycling of these newspapers. When my family and I stay in hotels, we all enjoy the newspaper. My stepfather and mother read the front sections, I like the sports, and my sisters fight over the crossword puzzle. As we leave the hotels, the hotel cleaning carts are often already in the hotel hallways as the staff sets up the rooms for...

Accommodation providers around the globe are adopting environmental marketing and management strategies to not only improve efficiency, but also increase competitiveness and gain access to niche markets. The cost savings and public relations benefits associated with hotel greening are well known, but the question remains: do meeting and conference planners care about green accommodations? Also, does the presence of environmental practices influence which vendors meeting planners select? Available research, association case studies and public policy suggest that it does. According to IMEX, the Worldwide Exhibition for Incentive Travel, Meetings and Events, 67 percent of meeting and incentive planners have taken...