The Spafinder Wellness 365 eighth annual 2015 State of Wellness Travel report offers a glimpse at the evolving travel habits of those travelers interested in “maintaining or enhancing one’s personal well-being.” This includes the pursuit of physical, mental, spiritual or environmental wellness while traveling for either leisure or business. The study was conducted in July and August. More than 200 travel agents in North America and Europe participated. I found the results quite interesting. Eighty-six percent of agents reported that they expect wellness travel to grow this year. Fourteen percent expected it to stay the same. No respondent thought...

Of the five educational sessions I moderated at last year’s International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show in New York City (event now called HX: The Hotel Experience), the session that drew the most participants was entitled, “Crafting a Career in Sustainability in Hospitality & Tourism—Sustainability Trends in Hospitality Education.” It was great to see young people so excited about sustainability. Whenever I see a young person trying to make a difference in our industry, I do my best to give that person a lot of exposure and encouragement. In 2013 I profiled the work of Milo Cress, an 11-year-old...

Let’s call him “John Smith.” This is a true story but I will protect the gentleman’s privacy. John drives an electric vehicle (EV) in Las Vegas and also lives in Las Vegas. One evening he decided he would go to a casino for dinner and gambling. He chose that casino because it has an EV charging station. He figured he could charge his vehicle while having a nice evening out. Upon arrival at the casino he was told by a resort associate that the charging station was for guests only. Let’s call this negative experience No. 1. Keep in...

I would not call it a flurry of announcements about LEED Platinum hotel developments but it is quite unusual to read about two in less than a month. The first one, in case you missed it, is the College Park Marriott Hotel & Conference Center in Hyattsville, Md. That property, originally named the Marriott Inn and Conference Center University of Maryland University College, was the first hotel in the United States to earn any type of LEED certification. The property, which has 237 guestrooms and suites, recently went through several years of renovation and emerged as one of just...

Those attending this November’s HX: The Hotel Experience (November 8 to 10) and Boutique Design New York (November 8 to 9) will be doing so in a building—the Jacob K. Javits Convention Center—that has undergone some dramatic changes in recent years. High above the trade show floors, up on the roof of the complex that offers 840,000 square feet of meeting space, there is a 6.75-acre green roof.“As the second largest of its kind in the country, the nearly seven-acre green roof is serving as a model for sustainability nationwide, reducing our energy consumption while becoming a living laboratory...

As published on Green Lodging News, Xanterra Parks & Resorts just released its 2014 Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Report. For those of you not familiar with Xanterra, its assets include operations at Grand Canyon National Park, Yellowstone National Park and numerous other parks, two resorts, two hotels, and companies such as Windstar Cruises and VBT Bicycling and Walking Vacations. Xanterra is one of the companies I have been reporting on the longest. The company has been tracking its environmental footprint since 2000. Since that year Xanterra has reduced its total fossil fuel consumption across park and resort operations by...

I am one of the few people in America who has never had a cup of coffee. And no, thinking about it does not keep me up at night. What should keep me up at night, however, is the incredible amount of waste created by single-serve coffee and other beverage pods (a.k.a. K-Cups, k cups, kups). An estimated 20+ billion k cups will be consumed in 2015. Stack them end to end and yes, they do go pretty far outside of our planet. If you have a Keurig Green Mountain brewer in your guestrooms, lobby or breakfast area, it...

I have often heard speakers cite figures about the number of green certification programs available to businesses. Typically the inference is that there are too many of the programs. That may very well be true but there should always be room for one more in our industry if it has been thoughtfully developed, is innovative, of value to the user, and of benefit to guests.  This past week I spoke with Debra Duneier, Founder and President of New York-based EcoChi, LLC about her company’s EcoChi 180° certification program (see article). It is just beginning to be adopted by hospitality...

Could the battery in the electric vehicle you are driving today help store and provide energy for your hotel tomorrow? It may happen soon thanks to the partnership between Green Charge Networks and Nissan that was announced last month. Green Charge Networks is one of the companies mentioned in the article I posted last week on energy storage technology. For those of you not familiar with energy storage systems, they are currently being deployed primarily in California. They help reduce demand charges that typically account for at least 30 percent of a commercial electricity bill, and often as much...

The International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show (IHMRS) has long been my favorite industry show. In recent years the show has experienced a steady decline in attendance, and yes, importance, as other shows have come along and people’s buying and networking habits have changed. In 2013 and 2014 Green Lodging News worked with the managers of the event to create a Hospitality Green Division—an area where green exhibitors were grouped together. It was a great idea and, I believe, a positive step in helping to stabilize the show. Yet, that step and several others were just not enough to...