We are in the midst of the busiest time of the year from a trade show standpoint. The International Hotel, Motel + Restaurant Show (IHMRS) will run from November 13 to 16 at the Javits Center in New York and the Greenbuild International Conference and Expo will be held November 17-19 at McCormick Place West in Chicago. The IHMRS has 825 companies exhibiting and Greenbuild will have approximately 900. Both events are expected to attract a similar crowd—25,000 to 30,000 people. I will be attending the IHMRS and will be reporting about the event on the Green Lodging News website...

Per Executive Order 13514 signed by President Obama a little more than a year ago, all federal agencies—approximately 2 million employees—have been directed to find ways to reduce direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions. (See related article.) Activities covered include transit, travel, training, and conferencing. GSA Bulletin FTR 10-06, issued on September 30, 2010, spells out ways federal agencies can reduce the environmental impact of their travel. Anyone running a lodging establishment in the United States needs to pay attention to GSA Bulletin FTR 10-06. When planning travel, those 2 million federal employees are now being asked to seek...

I spoke with Tom Rand for an article on his new Toronto-based Planet Traveler hostel this past week and am convinced our industry needs more outspoken entrepreneurs like him. Rand and his co-developer on the three-story, 114-bed project, Anthony Aarts, have incorporated geothermal, solar thermal, solar photovoltaic, and heat capture technologies in their project. (See article.) Planet Traveler was previously an abandoned building in downtown Toronto before it was converted into a low-carbon hostel. The developers’ goal was to reduce Planet Traveler’s carbon emissions—when compared to a similar “non green” building its size—by 75 percent. This is substantially beyond...

Something very exciting is happening at the Cleveland (Ohio) Airport Marriott—something that should interest any hotel owner or manager looking to build their restaurant business. The Marriott owned and managed hotel, which completed a $20 million renovation in July 2009, has a restaurant—AMP 150—that has been getting steady local publicity since it opened in September 2009. “AMP” stands for “America’s Modern Palate.” According to a recent article in Crain’s Cleveland Business, sales at AMP 150 have been three times greater than what was expected for the first year. Why the success? Here is my take: Hotel management hired an...

I will never forget a conversation I had with a wood flooring vendor at Hospitality Design Expo a couple of years ago. The gentleman went on and on about the environmental evils of carpeting. To be honest, the guy made some good points. Carpeting manufacturing is a resource-intensive process, the carpeting itself creates a waste dilemma, and it requires a lot of energy to clean over its lifetime. Maybe that is why companies like Accor North America are choosing to reduce the amount of carpeting they use. (Their Motel 6 Phoenix prototype replaces carpeting in the guestroom with wood-effect...

It was more than a year ago that I first wrote about the Greenstay Hotel & Suites brand. (Click here for that column.) I was interested in the property because it was the first time that I was aware of that a developer had actually used the word “green” in a new green hotel brand—one that had the potential to be franchised or expanded. At the time I wrote the column, the general manager (now no longer at the property) told me that Elliott Lodging, LLC, the hotel’s management company and developer, had already received queries from others interested...

This past week I had an opportunity to attend the Big Green Think Workshop in Vail, Colo. The event was organized by the Vail Valley Partnership, the Eagle Valley Alliance for Sustainability, and the Environmental Protection Agency Region 8. To see the aspen trees in their fall glory, there is no better time than late September/early October (see photo at end of this column) to be in Vail. It is too bad the scenery seemed to be a secret; I am pretty sure I was the only person staying at my hotel during the week and there were few...

You can invest heavily in greening up your lodging establishment but without ongoing staff training I guarantee that your green property will never reach its potential or meet staff and guest expectations. Even hotels with reputations as leaders in lodging’s environmental movement can struggle with staff training. I spoke with Katrina D’Argenis this past week and she described what it has been like managing the Saunders Hotel Group’s Comfort Inn & Suites Logan International Airport over the past few years. The hotel is arguably one of the greenest in the country with its more than 90 initiatives (click here to...

When you offer travelers something they like over and over, or just about anything repeatedly, they will come to expect it. That has certainly been the case with towel and linen reuse programs. According to the recently released American Hotel & Lodging Association’s 2010 Lodging Survey, approximately 90 percent of lodging establishments in the United States now offer this type of program—up from 52 percent of properties in 2004. What I am wondering is whether the day will come when guests also expect to have the option to opt out of housekeeping entirely—and be rewarded for it. What evidence do...

Two states down and just 48 more to go. As reported here at Green Lodging News this past week, over the past five months two states—Michigan and Wisconsin—have totally banned smoking in lodging establishments. Yes, even in all guestrooms guests are not permitted to smoke. As editor of a green publication, I can only applaud the action of legislators in those two states to finally eliminate smoking in guestrooms. I spoke with the president and CEO of the Michigan Lodging and Tourism Association and the president and CEO of the Wisconsin Hotel & Lodging Association this past week and they...