Industries have impacts over the environment, like air pollution, water contamination and wastes production. Moreover, is widely known that the hospitality industry is among the industries which cause such negative impacts. Environmental concern started after the booming of industrialization age and nowadays people have start talking more and more about the environmental them as are obvious the changes in our planet which are coming from these impacts.
Follow this trend the tourism industry has also start to concern about the environmental issues trying to be “green”.
What is a green hotel?
Before start talking about green hotels, let’s give first a definition about this term. A green hotel is a hotel which give emphasis to environmental sustainability. What differentiates a green hotel from another hotel is that a green hotel tries to reduce its carbon dioxide emission, to reduce water consumption, to reduce waste and generally tries to imply good practices in order to have low impacts over the environment.
You can also see the term green hotel written alternatively as sustainable hotel or eco-friendly hotel.
Can a five-star hotel or a resort be sustainable?
But can a five-star hotel of a resort be green? It’s a common true that when we hear the term green hotel in our minds comes some kind of alternative tourism for example ecotourism. For example, we think hotels without electricity of with reduced water sources. So a fair question can be how is possible for a hotel to be green as it is suggested in the literature that hotel generates huge amounts of wastes and consumes significant volume of water, energy and other natural resources are consumed. Also in the efforts of a hotels to offer effective services to their guest, their service could cause influences on the environment.
All these applies but still a luxury hotel can be sustainable. It’s a true that a luxury hotel can be green. Hotels can apply best practices with target to reduce their overall impacts.
How a hotel go green?
There are many ways where a hotel can do steps to sustainability. The most common way is the reducing of its carbon footprint. See here what is the carbon footprint.
Hotels are able to reduce the energy consumption by using led lamps or by using light detectors. In that way the lights need less energy or are open only when is needed. Another very common way is to use magnetic cards as keys for the rooms. So when the visitors leave the room all the lights, the air condition or the fridge close automatically. In that way the room don’t spend unnecessary energy and finally less energy consumption is needed per room and per guest.
What else hotels do? They try to minimize the water consumptions. One way to succeed this is to change the frequency of bed linen change. For example, instead of change the sheets and towels every day, they change them every two days or whenever the visitor asks it. In that way a hotel can reduce the wastewater from the laundries. Another example is to use stop water buttons to the showers which are located at the pool. In the way the water flow stops after a few second reminding the visitors that there is no reason to spend more water.
Except from the energy and the water consumption green hotels are trying to reduce their solid wastes quantities. One such example is the use of soap dispensers instead of individual shampoo bottles. In that way they can save tones of plastic wastes. Of course recycling is another way for hotels to promote their sustainable character.
These are only few of the best practices which the hotels can use in order to be characterized as green hotel and moving in the area of sustainable tourism. Learn more about sustainable tourism here. Technology now offer more opportunities and automations to help the hotels with the reducing of environmental issues.
Concerning the above, is easy to understand that a five-star hotel with a lot of rooms or a resort can be eco-friendly. It is a true the hotels want to offers high quality and luxury services but it doesn’t mean that they are not able to do it with a sustainable way.
Think and act in sustainable way
All of the above cannot be achieved without the participation of visitors. Hotel needs the corporation of the visitors. So, firstly is important the visitors to be informed about the impact that may have their own vocation on the environment. And secondly is important to be informed by the hotel for it’s best practices and why they have to follow them.
In conclusion if your thoughts are around the environment and is not in your plans to travel in alternative places or do agro tourism, the green hotels could be a good choice for you. In that way you can express your environmental sensitivity. So before you book your accommodation you can make a search for green hotels.
In addition, expect of the green hotels, you can also search for green airlines for your travel or green rental companies for your transport. You can find here a list of green hotels or resort and a list with the green airlines companies.
In our next article we present you how you can recognize if a hotel applies good practices and consequently how you can recognize a green hotel. Read here how you can recognize a green hotel.