Home Publisher's Point of View New element Survey Reveals Surprising Guest Behavior Habits

New element Survey Reveals Surprising Guest Behavior Habits

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You may have missed it but last week Green Lodging News ran a press release from element Hotels—a new Westin-inspired extended-stay brand from Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide—that concluded that most travelers (59 percent) are less environmentally conscious while on the road. Starwood’s element surveyed more than 1,000 travelers. This may come as no surprise to anyone who runs a lodging establishment but your guests are taking advantage of you.

According to the survey (click here to read the article), travelers are more apt to leave the light on in a hotel as compared to at home (60 percent), and 70 percent will open a new amenity bottle every time they take a shower. Although only about one-third (34 percent) believe it is important to change sheets and towels daily at home, 75 percent believe it is important to have fresh versions daily in a hotel. This is not good news for the environment and all of those towel and linen replacement programs.

Fortunately, element is fighting fire with fire to help combat travelers’ lax behavior. They are “forcing” guests to act responsibly—without them necessarily noticing. When it opens its first hotel next year, element will equip showers with shampoo and conditioning dispensers, install low-flow faucets and toilets to save 4,358 gallons of water per room each year, incorporate eco-friendly materials in construction when possible, include recycling bins in guestrooms, and use compact fluorescents throughout the hotel.

Green Lodging News commends element for carefully examining guest behavior before making changes in operations. Their research ultimately will help reduce the brand’s environmental impact. This should be a lesson to everyone who runs a hotel, motel, resort, inn or lodge. Even though there are many responsible travelers out there, don’t assume anything. Implement the products, technologies and processes necessary to counter guest behavior. Your bottom line and the planet will be better for it.

More on Mattresses

Last week I wrote about the lodging industry’s mattress waste challenge. I received several interesting e-mails in response to that column. Andres Hammerman, at the Black Sheep Inn in Ecuador, wrote to say that used mattresses never go to waste there. Some are sold at a discount to people in the local community, some are used below a new climbing wall as a cushion, and some are used to insulate a wood-fired sauna.

“This area did not really have a garbage problem when we moved here 13 years ago, because beer and soft drinks only came in returnable bottles and most other products were sold in bulk and wrapped in old newspaper,” Hammerman says. “With the ‘modernization’ of products, everything is now made out of plastic, over packaged and disposable, which equals garbage.”

Jeremy Archer at the Sugar Hill Harlem Inn in New York City had this to say:

“Your reflections on the sad story of the life of a mattress follows the pattern of the linear type of lifestyle that we have come to accept. The question of course is why don’t we look at the real costs of producing a mattress? If we do not include the disposal as part of that cost, then mattress companies are going to continue to manufacture them without considering the final end product—garbage. However, if the company knew that their product was coming back, they would change their production method so that all end products would be easy to dismantle.”

New Founding Sponsor

Green Lodging News welcomes the JMBM Global Hospitality Group® as a Founding Sponsor. The company represents developers, owners and lenders. Led by hotel lawyer Jim Butler, author of www.HotelLawBlog.com, the Global Hospitality Group® includes a team of 50 seasoned professionals with more than $40 billion of hotel transactional experience, involving more than 1,000 properties all over the world.

In the last five years, Jim and his team have assisted clients with more than 100 hotel mixed-use projects, all of which involve multiple components and are frequently integrated with energizing lifestyle elements. Jim and his team are able to help clients identify key business goals, assemble the right team—including green consultants—strategize the approach to optimize value and then get the deal done.

The Global Hospitality Group® is planning The Hotel Developers Conference 2008™. It will focus on green hotel development and will take place March 12 to 13 at Green Valley Ranch in Las Vegas. For more information, click here, or contact Jim Butler at jbutler@jmbm.com, (310) 201-3526.

As always, I can be reached at editor@greenlodgingnews.com.

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