In the lodging industry, green is the new black.
In hotel business, initiatives that are environment sustainable are becoming widespread. Environmentally friendly initiatives help hotels to save money and resources without compromising on quality.
Environmentally friendly initiatives range from saving water and energy to hiring of hotel executives that will actively participate in implementing green programs.

What led to the increase in environmentally friendly hotels?

The following factors are responsible for increase in the number of environmentally friendly hotels:

• Government regulation,
• Eco-friendly accommodations requested by guests,
• Belief that Environmentally responsible practices are the best thing
• Being environmentally friendly saves both money and resources and also addresses customer needs.

What visitors want today is that the hotel in which they stay should not only provide them with facilities but also respect the natural surroundings.

Steps to make your hotel environmentally friendly

To create environmentally hotel, the design criteria needs to concentrate on the following aspects:

• Creating and managing committees for managing environmental programs,
• Using disposable cups instead of  glassware to reduce waste,
• Placing wastebaskets with separate partition for recyclable components in guest rooms,
• Reusing broken or worn resources for other purposes,
• Conserving energy by using high-efficiency lighting,
• Equipping electrical and irrigation systems with timers which helps in conserving water and energy,
• Planting plants in your garden that consume less water i.e. Landscaping should be suited to the local ecosystem to avoid unnecessary use of chemicals,
• Creating areas for recycling and sorting trash from the waste in the hotel.

Benefits of Environmentally friendly hotels:

• Cost –efficiency: Environmentally friendly practices are cost –efficient,
• Marketing opportunities: There is definitely an increase in opportunities related to marketing once you start implementing environmentally friendly practices,
• Satisfaction of guests and staff members: Guests respect the idea of conserving the environment,
• Decrease in the amount of waste: Recycling definitely brings down the amount of waste,
• Aid in recovery of items: Sorting trash can help in recovery of certain items like towels and dishes thrown away inadvertently,
• High monetary value: Hotels and resorts that implement environmentally friendly practices tend to have a high monetary value.

Need of the hour

When turning your hotel into an environmentally friendly hotel, what is required is

• Proper education and motivation of the staff members and guests,
• Achieving cost savings, and
• Increasing the market share.

Tools like providing educational material to the staff and guests, proper planning, implementing practices that help in conserving resources and guarantee quality management help you implement proper environmentally friendly practices.

Thus, it can be said that as hotels put their top priority to improve the experience of their guests, being environmentally friendly is important and has to start from within.

Hotels can succeed in ‘Driving business to its properties’ by being environmentally friendly and also offer healthy and sustainable options.