T&L’s Got Travelers Paying Green for Green.
By: Tom Mercer on 12 10, 2007
Last month, Travel + Leisure ran a story on its Top 15 green hotels in the world and the associated press release was picked up by a number of sources including USA Today. The list was assembled by the magazine in collaboration with Conservation International, which is dedicated to environmental preservation and issues of sustainability. Current benchmarks for the hotel industry developing a level of sustainability involve their disposal of waste, reduction of water and energy use, and improving how the businesses interact with the local community.
The list is geographically broad, drawing hotels from a wide variety of regions and five continents. What isn’t quite as varied is the level of comfort and cost–which is certainly in keeping with Travel & Leisure’s target demographic. Three of the first five hotels listed have nightly rates that start at $700 and go up from there!
I can imagine how an average reader who saw this story in USA Today or Travel & Leisure might be alarmed to find the best green hotels in the world are ones that are well beyond the means of many eco-conscious travelers. Are “green services” in the hotel industry becoming just another luxury item hotels charge massive premiums for? I don’t have the answer, because the industry is just now starting to get mobilized on its environmental initiatives.
Tune back into this space over the next week and coming months. We’ll look at what the major hotel chains are doing in terms of green initiatives, and I will be going on a site visit later in the winter to the LEED Platinum certified new boutique hotel in San Francisco, The Orchard to see first hand what this is all about.
4 Responses
I stayed at Argonaut Hotel (a Kimpton Hotel) in San Francisco. Don’t think it is LEED certified, but they recycle a lot of the daily waste, use only environmentally friendly products to clean, and offer organic coffee. It’s a start. And it was a lovely hotel.
Aha! You’ve identified the key attribute of successful environmentally-friendly products and services. They’re just as good as the competitive products… AND they’re eco-friendly. You cannot expect consumers to accept less.
On the flip side, I think about the Seventh Generation tissues and paper towels. The quality of the paper is just awful, shreds, and is not absorbent. There’s got to be a way to produce higher quality paper towels from recycled paper.
I was in San Francisco recently and went to a couple HUGE (6,000people) dinners at the Musconi center where they were completely biodegradable. It was amazing to see composting on such a large scale. They didn’t even have trash cans out.
Am learning a lot on your site, thank you.