ITHACA, N.Y.—For the ninth consecutive year, the annual Cornell Hotel Sustainability Benchmarking research reveals a general decrease in energy and water usage among the participating hotels. The decrease is largely associated with the pandemic which shook the world and granted no exception to the hospitality industry.
For this reason, low occupancy rates and hotel closures are major contributors to the decreased energy and water consumption reported, as compared to the 2019 calendar year data set.
A total of 25,576 hotels from 31 international hotel groups took part by providing data on their water and energy use for the calendar year of 2021. Of the total, around 50 percent of the data set comes from hotels in the United States. The data do not account for individual hotel amenities in terms of energy or water usage, but they do allow hoteliers and potential visitors to see benchmarks for different hotel segments and locations.
Despite the challenges faced by the industry, the study continues to present a strong picture of the industry’s performance over the years. To provide a more robust and useful data set of the industry for benchmarking and to promote improvements in energy, water, and carbon performance, the authors encourage additional hotels and hotel chains to take part in CHSB2024, especially those in the lower tier segments, which are not as strongly represented.
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