Shelley Lotz The trend in spa vacations, wellness classes, and eco therapy is growing and continues to weave its way into business as usual. With our dependence on resources and mother nature, sustainability is front and center in the hospitality industry. Most guests expect certain standards and that includes a more restorative mindset in our business models. Are you up to speed with your initiatives? Here are some best practices to consider in your CSR plans for spas, wellness programs, and beyond.Evolving Your Brand Include your sustainability mission and vision in your culture, messaging and marketing. Make it visible and share...

NATIONAL REPORT—The 49th Earth Day, to be held on Monday, April 22, is prime time for green hotels around the planet to shine a light on their sustainability programs. The following hotels and one green organization have announced plans for activities and special promotions. If your property has activities planned for Earth Day, Earth Week or Earth Month, contact editor@greenlodgingnews.com. In honor of Earth Day, the Hyatt Regency Hotel and Spa in Monterey (Calif.) is offering the following promotions: The hotel will give out a “Plant Your Pencil” to the first 100 guests who check in on April 22. The pencils come in five...

ODESSA, FLA.—Green Lodging News has added Vios Spa Group to its Green Product & Service Directory in the Consultants/Spas/Wellness category. Vios Spa Group is a consulting group providing quality standards, education, and certification. Shelley Lotz, Principal of Vios Spa Group, has 30 years of experience in the spa/wellness industry as an owner, educator, and esthetician. She wrote Green Spas and Salons: How to Make Your Business Truly Sustainable and is a contributing author of the textbook Milady’s Standard Esthetics Fundamentals. She is also a Certified Sustainable Building Advisor. The Vios Certified Sustainable...

ATLANTA—Pure Wellness, a pioneer in hotel guestroom wellness solutions, has installed 28 Pure Rooms at two properties in the Windy City. Now, wellness-minded travelers visiting Silversmith Hotel Chicago Downtown, a Historic Hotels of America inductee, or the Sofitel Chicago can experience a Pure Room. “The leadership teams at The Silversmith Hotel Chicago and the Sofitel Chicago recognize the importance of serving the wellness-minder traveler—a very large and growing market segment,” says Larry Hall, CEO of Pure Wellness. “The wellness-minded traveler makes choices that lead to a state of holistic health, and a Pure Room satisfies their need for purified air,...

BELLEVUE, WASH.—As the average person checks their phone 110 times per day, it’s no surprise that there’s a need to recharge and go off the grid, and a likely reason why wellness tourism is on the rise. Combined with people’s increased awareness of the growing threats to our natural resources and interest in eco-friendly experiences, traveling to America’s great national parks has never been more appealing. Based on recent Expedia Group data, travel to America’s national parks is booming, indicating the various opportunities for hoteliers to capitalize on the interest in key national park markets, including Moab, Yellowstone, Yosemite and...

You do not have to look far to find examples of human rights violations by Saudi Arabia. Last year’s killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in the Saudi Arabia consulate in Istanbul is a recent prominent example. Saudi Arabia’s intervention in the war in Yemen is another example. According to the Armed Conflict Location and Event Data Project, 56,000 civilians and combatants were killed in Yemen between January 2016 and October 2018. Terrible for such a small nation. It is certainly challenging to lift Saudi Arabia up as a country to emulate but some recent news out of the country on...

LAAMU, MALDIVES—Tourists visit the Maldives to experience diverse coral reefs, out-of-the-ordinary marine life and beautiful palm-fringed beaches. When a business relies on natural assets, like Six Senses Laamu does, environmentally-responsible operations that conserve them are a must. What the resort does on land is just as important as what it does on and under water, and that is why MATATO (Maldives Association of Travel Agents and Tour Operators) has named Six Senses Laamu the Leading Eco-Resort at the Maldives Travel Awards 2018. Six Senses Hotels Resorts Spas operate with the philosophies of wellness and sustainability at their core. These values...

Approximately every two years the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA) releases the results of its Lodging Survey. The survey is done in partnership with STR and is funded by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Foundation. The 2018 survey included all properties in the United States with 10 or more guestrooms—nearly 56,000 U.S. properties—easily making the survey sample the largest of any survey in our industry. The report based on the survey was released a little more than a week ago. See this article for a link to the survey report. This year’s survey report included data on many...

READING, PA.—Ambius, the world’s largest interior landscaping company, premiered their proprietary trends report, a first for the biophilic category that highlights the top six trends in biophilic design that have staying power. These architectural applications are poised to change the way people work and operate within the built environment. Part of the larger wellness movement, biophilic design integrates nature and natural patterns into building architecture in order to create a human-nature connection that can help positively change the way people work. Research shows that integrating biophilic design into indoor environments positively impacts employees in several ways: Reduced employee absenteeism; Improved...

Articles about bed bugs are among the most read on the Green Lodging News website and for good reason. As tiny as the creatures are, they can become a dinosaur-size problem for you—in many ways. As mentioned in an article just posted on Green Lodging News, a year ago, a California family was awarded $1.6 million as a result of a lawsuit filed against their former landlords for not properly addressing a bed bug infestation. The lawyer representing the family said the award was the largest he had seen given to a single family. While the $1.6 million settlement...