Why Environmentally Friendly Hotels

It's getting easier to support environmental practices when you travel, but not all hotels haven't caught on or are not up-to-speed yet. Be sure to first look for "green" hotels for your lodging options. Participate in any "green practices", like towel and sheet reuse programs, recycling, and energy conservation (turning your lights and TV off when you aren't in the room), that the hotel offers. Be as conserving on the road as you are at home.

There are numerous names for green lodging, including green hotels, ecolodges, and sustainable tourism (conserving both the environment and the culture or social aspects of an area, having a low impact on both). The best place to start your green hotel research is online, starting with the website Environmentally Friendly Hotels, and then using the search engines, where the best term to use is "environmentally friendly hotels". Don't let the various terms confuse you or put you off, because people have different focuses in their environmental actions, and the name often reflects the focus of each specific hotel. The bottom line is the same, though: these properties are interested in preserving their environment, both social and natural.

Green Seal, an organization that certifies the environmental practices of a variety of businesses, conducted a survey a few years ago and found an average 150-room hotel consumes in one week as much as 100 4-person households do in one year. That's a lot of consumption and waste! Some of the reasons that go into the increased consumption are:
* houses are "off" during the night and sometimes during large portions of the day while hotels are "on" 24/7, with lights, climate control, etc.
* people in households are aware of the cost of rampant water and energy use, so do some self-monitoring and conserving, while people often don't worry so much about resource consumption when they are at hotels
* soap, shampoo, lotion, and food items can be reused by the family until they are consumed, while hotels have a one-use policy (for which you are grateful)
* houses often are sized to fit the number of regular inhabitants while hotels are sized to fit more than the number of regular inhabitants, causing unused space to be built and heated/cooled

The problem with hotels' approaches to resource consumption is that thinking tends to go no further than "today". While guests (like you) are being pampered or taken care of, precious, non-renewable resources are being consumed at an alarming rate. That consumption not only impacts the quality of the air you breathe and the water you drink today, it also takes resources from the future. What does that mean for the future of our children?

Another issue to consider is that of natural habitats. Cutting a forest down, or digging a prairie up, to build a resort means the local ecosystem has been destroyed, impacting animals, air, water, and even future vegetation. Building a hotel in the middle of the desert causes resources that aren't naturally there to be piped in, again changing the environment. These changes impact not only the local environment, but even the worldwide environment. Can we afford to keep doing that?

You can contribute to waste reduction in the hospitality industry by first booking your hotel nights at green hotels. If you can't find a green hotel it might be because they don't promote their environmental actions, so further research may help you find one. Learn to ask hotels what green steps they take, and be prepared to prompt them with suggestions like a sheet/towel reuse program, bulk bathroom amenities, recycling, and compact fluorescent light bulbs. If they don't have such programs, encourage them to create one -- and if you don't stay there, tell them why.

If you still can't find a green hotel, create your own green program by conscientiously turning lights off you aren't using, especially when you leave the room, using your own shampoo and soap rather than their individual supplies, and refuse housekeeping services so your sheets and towels won't get changed daily. And while at the hotel, tell management how important environmental action is to you so they hear the message and start planning for a green program. Consider also writing to the hotel owner/manager to express the same ideas, understanding that sometimes the written word is more powerful than the spoken word.

There are some "green" hotels that offer sheet and towel reuse programs where the request isn't honored. When you find your sheets and towels changed after requesting they not be, speak to management about it. If the problem persists, start telling housekeeping not to come into your room anymore, and write a complaint to management about your experience. Change won't happen if we stay quiet, so speak up -- and loudly.

Seeing different areas of the country and the world is a wonderful experience. You and the people you meet are better for the exchange. That's the kind of exchange that makes tourism valuable. But ruining the surroundings of a tourist location is counterproductive. To keep tourism from being detrimental, we all need to pitch in and reduce waste.

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