Last week was a busy one for Green Lodging News, with attendance at the Hospitality Design Expo & Conference in Las Vegas. The conference included Green Day last Wednesday. Be sure to read the two articles on Green Lodging News that provide summaries of Green Day, as well as some of the green products featured at the Expo. (Click here for article one. Click here for article two.) If you did not have an opportunity to attend these events this year, I strongly encourage you to do so in 2009.
A total of 270 people attended Green Day and 450 attended the Green Luncheon that same day. I attended the luncheon last year and it certainly looked like attendance this year had doubled that from 2007—further proof that interest in the greening of our industry is certainly not a fad. In fact, luncheon keynote speaker Danny Seo defined what is happening in the United States today as a “cultural shift.”
I spent hours walking the trade show floor looking for new green products and visiting with suppliers that were first to the market with those products two or more years ago. I would not go so far as to say that every vendor is going green because it is not the case, but many are now offering at least greener options to their traditional lines. It was interesting to me that while some vendors were eager to tout their products’ green attributes with bold booth displays, other suppliers were much more timid and tentative.
Here are a few more observations based on my time spent at the HD Expo & Conference:
• At the same time that our industry’s hoteliers are wrestling with certification issues, so too are suppliers. It may be several years before manufacturers and their respective associations figure out what “green” means. In some cases, suppliers are also struggling with which existing certification programs to pursue. The programs can be very expensive and ROI is questionable.
• Hotel owners and operators are anxious for more of their accomplishments in areas such as FF&E, kitchen and laundry to receive credit under the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification program.
• Designers in the position to specify products such as fabrics and floor coverings have an incredible number of green options. Colors and patterns are as good as or better than traditional designs.
• An increasing number of suppliers are including recycled content in their product lines. This is the case with fabric, floor covering, wall covering, tile and stone manufacturers.
• At the same time that more recycled content is being used in products, so too are more products being offered as recyclable, with some vendors offering to take back old product for recycling.
• Going green can still cost significantly more. I spoke with one distributor of organic towels—ones including an organic cotton and bamboo fiber blend—and he told me his company was selling them for about 40 percent more than the traditional cotton alternatives. The good news, he said, is that many hotel operators are opting for the more natural option.
• It does make sense to “scream” green in a trade show booth’s design. One supplier who did this told me show visitors would turn their heads immediately and even reverse their course to talk to him.
• Even though Hospitality Design did a great job greening its meeting, Las Vegas has a very long way to go before it can call itself a green destination.
More on Las Vegas
Back in January 2007, I wrote about MGM Mirage’s CityCenter project. The 18-million-square-foot development on 76 acres at that time was slated to cost about $7 billion. Last week, the Las Vegas Review Journal reported that the cost to build CityCenter had cracked the $9 billion mark and was now $9.2 billion.
According to the Review Journal, MGM Mirage spokesman Alan Feldman said the budget increase reflected continued rising construction costs development projects are experiencing nationwide. The new price also takes into account an increase in the value of the assets. Last year, Dubai World, the investment arm of the Persian Gulf state of Dubai, purchased a 50 percent interest in CityCenter. Other enhancements to the project’s budget include $1.7 billion for the cost of land.
MGM Mirage is pursuing LEED certification for CityCenter. For those developers pondering LEED certification and its costs, CityCenter is certainly an aberration. In fact, at the HD Expo & Conference, a pair of architects from Sera Architects made a solid financial case for pursuing LEED, specifically in regard to a Courtyard by Marriott hotel project in Portland, Ore. After all is said and done, LEED-related costs for that project will be recovered in just 18 months. (Click here and then click on “Achieving the New Look of Green.)
As always, I can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.
