Two Earth holidays are coming up soon. First, Earth Hour is planned for Saturday, March 30 at 8:30 p.m. local time. Second, Earth Day will be held on Monday, April 22. What is your property or company planning for these two occasions? They are perfect opportunities to showcase your sustainability initiatives and to volunteer to help a local school or other organization. You may even want to have an Earth festival, as some properties have done in the past. Or, extend the celebration over a week’s time. Earth Hour is more conducive to a turning out the lights, lighting...

Microplastics, commonly found in our oceans, are less than 5 millimeters in length and are a hazard to marine life. Microplastics (and microbeads) have gotten a lot of publicity in recent years but did you know that microsynthetic fibers can be hazardous as well? Microsynthetic fibers are small plastic particles within the category of microplastics that are fibrous in shape. If your laundry is used to wash anything made from synthetic fibers like polyester, you are releasing microfibers down the drain—fibers that can make their way past treatment plants and into the water that animal and sea life consume. If...

Fortune just released the its annual “World’s Most Admired Companies” list. Six companies were listed in the “Hotels, Casinos, and Resorts” category. Topping the list in that category is Marriott International, followed by Hilton Worldwide Holdings, Hyatt Hotels, Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts. As of this morning, three companies had issued press releases about their achievements: Las Vegas Sands, MGM Resorts International and Wynn Resorts. To develop the “World’s Most Admired Companies” list, Fortune collaborated with partner Korn Ferry Hay Group on the survey of corporate reputation. They began with 1,500 candidates, which included the 1,000...

As I am writing this, the U.S. federal government is in its 26th day of shutdown—the longest on record in U.S. history. If you have been following the news, you know that personnel essential to the smooth flow of tourists to and within the U.S. have been impacted greatly. Last week, Brian Crawford, AHLA Executive Vice President of Government Affairs, urged the Congress and the Administration to re-open the federal government and move forward on important issues of the day. The shutdown is of course not good for anyone in our industry. I visited the EPA ENERGY STAR website this...

As posted on Green Lodging News earlier this week, Host Hotels & Resorts, Inc., the nation’s largest lodging real estate investment trust, released a Corporate Responsibility (CR) Highlights report for the very first time. The 2018 report provides a summary of results and progress over the last reporting year along with future commitments. I read through the report and this is what I found most compelling: Host achieved 2020 environmental targets three years ahead of schedule, including a greenhouse gas target verified by the Science Based Targets initiative. Host says it is the first hospitality company to have its...

A day after Congress passed the Frederick Douglass Trafficking Victims Prevention and Protection Reauthorization Act of 2017, (see article—The new U.S. anti-trafficking law, passed in Congress on December 17, says when federal employees travel they should choose travel and hospitality companies that follow the six points of the ECPAT Code of Conduct), Polaris reported that the number of cases of human trafficking reported to the National Human Trafficking Hotline are projected to jump at least 25 percent in 2018 compared to 2017. This is based on early numbers released by Polaris, which has been operating the National Hotline for...

To determine its 2019 Just 100 list, Forbes partnered with Just Capital, which asked 81,000 Americans about what they most want to see from the nation’s biggest businesses. The most popular answers? Pay workers fairly; treat customers well and protect their privacy; produce quality products; minimize their environmental impact; give back to the communities they operate in; commit to ethical and diverse leadership; and create abundant job opportunities. With those seven priorities in mind, Forbes ranked 890 of America’s largest publicly-traded companies to determine which are the best corporate actors. The result of this data-crunching: the 2019 Just 100. These...

From now until February, guests at the Paradisus Los Cabos in Mexico can participate in the luxury resort’s Welcome to Life initiative. The initiative protects the endangered wildlife native to the Los Cabos region. Paradisus Los Cabos is now home to a nesting colony of three vulnerable turtle species—Leatherhead, Black and Olive Ridley. Paradisus Los Cabos is one of only three hotels in the region authorized to host a sea turtle conservation program. This is in part due to the location of the property, which lies in an area conducive to the natural environmental conditions necessary to serve the...

Wellness tourism is exploding and data about the industry sector is becoming increasingly available. For example, according to the Global Wellness Institute, wellness tourism grew from a $563 billion market in 2015 to $639 billion in 2017, or 6.5 percent annually, more than twice as fast as tourism overall. Recently, the Wellness Tourism Association (WTA) released results from its first Wellness Travel Survey focused on what consumers desire from wellness vacations. A total of 2,566 respondents participated in the just under eight-month long, online consumer survey. Among key findings unveiled at the WTA’s inaugural Meeting of Members: Just under half...

Two recent hotel emergencies highlight the importance of placing carbon monoxide detectors throughout an entire hotel building—not just in guestroom areas. First, last Friday morning, a Jacksonville, N.C. Holiday Inn Express was evacuated after a carbon monoxide leak. Sixteen people required medical treatment at a local hospital. The cause of the leak is yet to be determined. Some of those evacuated were homeowners displaced after Hurricane Florence. Yesterday morning, emergency crews evacuated a portion of the Westin Hotel in downtown Nashville after a carbon monoxide leak was detected in the building. According to fire officials, the leak sickened 14 people, and...