Green hospitality.

Hotel Industry Gets Serious About Environmental Business

Environmental travelers can rest easy knowing that hotels across the country are answering a wake-up call to convert to greener ways.

In Austin, Texas, The Habitat Suites Hotel paints itself many shades of green - with low-flow shower heads, faucet aerators, a low-flow lawn sprinkler system, compact fluorescent lighting in rooms and hallways, energy-efficient air conditioning units, and bulk soap and shampoo dispensers in the showers instead of the small throwaway bottles and soap bars. "We get so many compliments and 'thank yous'. People really appreciate it," says Diane Cummings, Habitat's general manager. All 96 suites at the hotel feature environmental systems from top to bottom. "We've learned you can do the right thing and still save money," Cummings says.

Elsewhere, the 1,206-room Fontainebleau Hilton Resort and Towers in Miami Beach, Florida reuses laundry detergent and cleaning barrels as recycling and garbage bins. At L'Hotel in Toronto, Canada, retired bed sheets are made into guest laundry bags, replacing single-use plastic bags.

Atmosphere of Change

"Greening" hotel linens and towels programs is proving to be the most practical and popular environmental initiative in the hospitality field. The 12,000-member American Hotel & Motel Association launched a "Good Earthkeeping" program in May 1996. Participating hotels leave in-house cards for guests informing them that by using the cards and hanging up their bath towels, housekeeping will straighten the room and make the bed, but will not replace the towels and linens. This saves money and cuts down on water and detergent expenses.

The Holiday Inn's "Conserving for Tomorrow" linens and towels program has grown from 82 to 500 participating inns since October 1995. The Inn's survey of leisure and business travelers "indicated that 81 percent of the people were more inclined to stay at a place where linen and towel programs were in place," says Cara Montries, manager of environmental affairs for Holiday Inn.

The Green Hotels Association (GHA) offers a "Meeting Planner's Questionnaire" for travel coordinators to send to hotels. The answers to the 34-question survey indicate a hotel's "greenness" and enable guests to make a reservation based on environmental standards.

Guests can also expect to see room amenities go the green route. Hotels have started stocking rooms with recycled paper tissues, unbleached stationery and in-room recycling receptacles, while other, less-noticeable amenities like organic cotton linens, air and water filtration systems, and environmentally-safe cleaning products are also becoming commonplace.

EverGreen Rooms by Hartford, Inc. have installed air and water filtration systems in Hampton Inns, Embassy Suites, Best Western Hotels and Comfort Inns nationwide. These "EverGreen Rooms" feature an independent filtered water system with a separate faucet for drinking water, while the air filtration system provides clean and healthy air that isn't sterilized with commercial deodorizers and air fresheners.

Brighter Future

On the international scene, hotels have been instituting green initiatives for years, while also working within the communities to support the local economy.

"European and Asian hotels are more active," says Lucy Bernard, at Green Hotelier magazine in London, which highlights international hotel success stories to promote sustainable development. The process is also starting to work - slowly - in the U.S.

Kim Moffitt, director of marketing at Hospitality Valuation Services (HVS) in Mineola, New York, says that U.S. hotels often take a philanthropic role within their communities by donating money and reusable materials, while eco-resorts offer more community and guest support-programs. She says resorts can use locally supplied building materials, hire local workers and offer other financial incentives because they have higher operating costs and cater to guests who are willing to pay for these extras.

In the U.S., however, these changes are starting to appear at places like the Miraval Resort in Tucson, Arizona. During construction, planners replanted - rather than replaced - trees that had been temporarily removed, re-routed building plans around an existing stream, and incorporated natural bug-control systems.

Environmental travelers should continue to send positive reinforcement to hotels making a difference, and speak up to those hotels that are lagging behind.

CONTACTS: American Hotel and Motel Association, 1201 New York Avenue NW, Washington, D.C. 20005-3917/[phone]; Green Hotelier, 1516 Cornwall Terrace, London, England NW14QP/[phone]; Hospitality Valuation Services, 372 Willis Avenue, Mineola, NY 11501/[phone].