BARCELONA, SPAIN—While the hotel industry is awash in sustainability certifications, there is a dearth of them in the short-term rental (STR) sector. Until now, owners of short-term rentals haven’t had an STR-specific standard to work toward. Vanessa de Souza Lage, founder and CEO of Sustonica, aims to change that. Her Barcelona-based startup awards properties a “certification for environmental sustainability” that she claims is the first sustainability certification open to all STRs, regardless of where they’re listed. STR sustainability is “a very confusing world as you may find lots and lots of contradicting information,” de Souza Lage says. The industry needs “one certification,...

BEND, ORE. & HOOD RIVER, ORE.—Dedicated to the advancement of LGBTQIA+ awareness, celebration, and inclusivity, Bend’s Campfire Hotel, and sister property The Hood River Hotel & Hostel have recently become “Proud Certified” and will receive a Travel Proud badge on the respective properties’ Booking.com listings. The Booking.com Travel Proud program focuses on three priorities: helping LGBTQIA+ people travel with confidence, helping properties be extra welcoming, and using the right language in every interaction. To receive Travel Proud designation, representatives of Campfire Hotel and Hood River Hotel & Hostel had to complete Booking.com’s Proud Hospitality training program, commit to putting what they learned into practice, identify ways...

We at HVS have long valued the importance of embracing diversity, celebrating our differences, and building a better consulting team as a result. Exceptional teams do this: embracing, accepting, and understanding these differences to become more deeply connected and effective. When a hotel operations team is similarly understanding and celebratory of differences, guests can feel the difference and often become repeat guests as a result. Autism awareness is an effort HVS supports by engaging with Autism Double-Checked, an organization that provides education and training about this disability. We encourage you and your hotel operations team to learn more. Beyond the matter...

Two important occasions and great opportunities for your properties are coming up in March and April—Earth Hour on March 25 at 8:30 p.m. local time and Earth Day on April 22. Please write to me at greenlodgingnews@gmail.com to tell me what you are planning. Since its beginnings in 2007, Earth Hour has been known for the “lights off” moment, with individuals from around the globe switching off their lights to show symbolic support for the planet and to raise awareness of the environmental issues affecting it. Hotels and hotel companies around the world have been participating for years. Last year for...

LOS ANGELES—Just in time for National Plan for Vacation Day on January 31, the first statewide regenerative travel program launched with Visit California & Kind Traveler, sharing a wave of new opportunities for travelers to make a positive impact in the communities they visit while unlocking exclusive offers from more than 58 iconic hotels across 12 destinations in the Golden State—with 38 brand-new hotels and impact opportunities for 2023.  With more than 97 percent of travelers revealing it’s important for their vacation dollars to positively impact the communities they visit (Kind Traveler 2022 Impact Tourism Report), and 55 percent of Americans forfeiting vacation days each...

BETHESDA, MD.—In just three months since launching the MDO (myDigitalOffice) Sustainability Calculator and Certification, 15 hotel management companies comprising more than 1,500 hotels have qualified, and their collective efforts are saving 743 trees and 134 cubic feet of landfill waste annually. The MDO Sustainability Certification was launched in November 2022 as a way to shine the spotlight on hotel owners and operators dedicated to reducing their environmental footprint, and its rapid adoption demonstrates the industry’s accelerated action around ESG efforts. Companies such as Crestline Hotels & Resorts, Commonwealth Hotels, Remington Hotels, McNeill Hotel Company, and Apple REIT have received certification....

Our industry has a lot of all stars who come up with great ideas. I spoke with one of them this past week. His name is Floris Licht, and he is the full-time General Manager of the DoubleTree by Hilton Amsterdam Centraal Station. He has an impressive side gig: He is Chief Planting Officer for Hotels for Trees, a nonprofit that has planted more than 105,000 trees since the program launched in July 2021. That is quite a patch of trees. What Hotels for Trees offers is an alternative for those hotels that incentivize guests to opt out of housekeeping...

Euronews just released its 2023 Travel Trend Report. Almost all the trends touch on sustainability or wellness in one way or another. First on the list is regenerative travel—nature positive and carbon positive travel. “Tour operators, destination bodies and hotels are tasked with the job of actively repairing, restoring and investing in nature, in order to keep pace with consumer sentiment,” the report says. Third on the list is Rail Revival. Driving the return to this form of travel is the convenience, cost and lower carbon footprint. “A handful of private companies are reviving night trains across Europe,” the report says....

ODESSA, FLA.—Green Lodging News has added Christie & Co. to the “Strategic Branding, Design and PR” section of its Green Product & Service Directory. Christie & Co, an award-winning full-service global growth agency specializing in strategic branding, PR, market research, and advertising, has been guiding ethical brands from Dream to Mainstream since 1992. In their three decades in business, Christie & Co has helped companies realize or refresh their mission, visions and values and integrated these into results-oriented branding and PR. The agency has forged such a pathway in building brands that almost every player in ethically minded industries...

NORTH TAHOE, NEV.—Late last year, Fodor’s published its 2023 “No List”—the places travelers should avoid in the new year. Included on the list was Lake Tahoe, a place where Fodor’s says “nature needs a break” primarily because of the effect that sediment and emissions from heavy traffic have on the lake’s clarity. According to The Mercury News, “The Fodors article quoted Andy Chapman, President and CEO of Travel North Tahoe Nevada (TNTNV) as saying tourism and hospitality leaders are trying to find ‘creative solutions to take cars off the road’ without telling people to stay away.” With 15 million visitors...