Eco-friendly hotels are trending now!

The world is becoming eco-friendly and becoming an eco-friendly hotel has a number of great benefits!   By becoming an eco-friendly hotel your business can stay outstrip the competition, attract more customers, help the environment and even better, save you money!

Green hotels are now becoming more and more common- but how do they do this, more importantly how can you become a green hotel? There are several ways this can be done:

Cut down on your power

One of the major ways you can ‘go green’ is to cut down your energy.  There are a host of innovative new devices such as remote heating and lighting controls, key cards, and human sensors which can all help you to keep your energy bills low and thus reduce your operating costs. Replacing light bulbs with energy saving LEDs, not overheating water, having good insulation and paying attention to the heating or cooling of corridor areas and are also useful tips!

Save water!

Water is a scarce product and is expensive to supply so by saving water you will be well on way to becoming an eco-friendly hotel and also reduce your operating costs.  Offer guests a linen re-use service to reduce the use of washing machines and driers which are expensive to run.  Adjust water flows on showers and taps and install dual flush toilets.  Keep your plumbing well maintained to avoid leaks as these can be major water wasters!

Outside if you have grounds and gardens then install a rain harvester, or even better install  grey water recycling.  If your gardens need watering, a good tip is to do this in the evening when there is less evaporation.

Train employees

Time to get ‘Green Staff’!  This is a major step in to becoming an environmentally friendly hotel.  Educating employees to begin switch lights off in employee areas and to turn off excessive air conditioning is a great starting point and will make great energy savings!  Cleaning staff can be trained to turn off dripping taps, and use less water when cleaning.  For example they can be trained to effectively clean the toilet whilst only flushing it once.  If you don’t have a remote system or human sensors, ensure your staff turn off heating or air-conditioning, and close or open blinds and curtains in order to keep the heat in or out.

Posting green practise posters are also a great reminder for staff.

Recycling, waste and renewables

Increasing recycling and disposing of waste properly is another way to become an eco-hotel.   Install recycling bins in hotel rooms and in the lobby. Paper used within the hotel should be at least 20% recycled content, or even better go paperless!  Guests today are very familiar with e-receipts so only offer paper receipts on request.  Begin a recycling program to dispose of batteries and florescent light bulbs through a licensed service provider.  Renewable energy sources such as solar power or wind energy are also great options if they are available.  They may have an upfront cost, but in the long run they will be great money savers!

Guests & Guests Rooms

If guests are booking to stay in your eco-friendly hotel they expect to see some evidence of this in their rooms. Ditch the plastic and provide glass tumblers and ceramic coffee cups.  A bottle of milk in the fridge is a great alternative to plastic UHT portions. Use refillable shampoo and shower gel dispensers. Offer free and convenient parking for green vehicles as a promotion to guests.  Finally make sure you provide instructions in different languages to explain all your recycling and food waste systems, as well as the linen-reuse scheme.

Serve local and organic food, and compost food waste

Go organic and buy local to cut down on ‘food miles’!  Offer vegetarian and vegan dishes as they not only cut down on the energy needed for the meat and poultry industry but they will be popular with your guests. Takes steps to reduce you food waste and find ways of disposing of food waste in an eco-friendly manner. Being an eco-friendly hotel also means using energy star equipment such as an energy star steam cooker.

In the grounds

If you are lucky enough to have the space why not develop an eco-friendly garden?  Grow native plants to cut down on transport miles and the additional benefit is that they tend to need less watering in the heat.  Put up bird feeders and grow plants that attract wildlife and if you have the room you could always consider keeping chickens.  They will be a big hit with families!  Finally a kitchen garden is a great asset for any good restaurant and will help you to cut down of food costs and food miles!

Team up with other eco warriors!

A good eco-friendly hotel will go that one step further for their guests.  Team up with other eco-warriors and offer eco-friendly activities such as nature walks.   Why not have a number of branded bikes that customers can use for free so they can ditch the car and explore the area!

Finally tell your green story!

So you have gone to all the trouble of becoming a green hotel, now the important part is to tell your guests and promote your green story!  Simply telling people your sustainability story really will be great for your business.  It will also set you apart from your competitors.    Plus it gives your brand personality and something to talk about and share on social media.  Imagine the mileage you would get from keeping your own chickens.  You could add a page to your website which would attract families.  You could let children feed the chickens and collect the eggs.  You could serve the eggs to guests for breakfast, how delicious!  Finally they would be great to feature on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram!

We hope these ideas will encourage you to ‘go green’ in some way.  Not only will it be great for your guests but your business will also benefit!  You will attract more customers as well as a new type of customer thus increasing your revenue.  You will save money and reduce your operating costs.  Your profit margins will improve and your operating profit will increase.    Even better you will be helping to save our precious planet!

To find out more ways to improve your hotel revenue management and operating profit why not get in touch with us today, we would be delighted to hear from you. Of course we are also on all the usual channels, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ .