Now that being green is a part of your brand, you have opened the door to a variety of ways that you can re-position your property or chain with existing customers as well as within new markets. You now have a wealth of information you can use concerning how waste minimization, energy efficiency, fresh and wastewater management, and environmentally and socially sensitive purchasing affect your bottom line and improve the quality of the products and services that you provide at your facility. The first and most practical means of marketing your green operations is within your local community and supply chains. READ MORE

Today, with increasing public interest and awareness of the detrimental impacts human activity can have on the environment and society, consumers are more skeptical and critical of "green" claims being made about goods and services. The question facing them when they make purchasing decisions today is more graduated, and examines to what extent the production and use of a good or service is detrimental to the environment and society. Specifically within the hospitality industry, this question can now be phased as, How does the hospitality service promote sustainable development of its local community and other communities that it interacts with? READ MORE

Bathroom and facial tissue products are ubiquitous and essential elements of all property guest rooms. Despite their small size and lowly function, they have very significant environmental impacts. They are also to some degree associated with performance and quality issues, and many properties take considerable care in selecting them to conform with their standards or decor. This article will attempt to demonstrate how environmental issues can be addressed satisfactorily in choosing tissue products without sacrificing performance or quality. READ MORE

As bedroom services, hotel properties first and foremost are in the trade of changing linens and doing laundry. While many properties outsource their linen supply and laundering, they command a significant enough supply to exert an influence on their laundry service. They can, in short, seek to ensure that their most plentiful commodity is cleaned in the most environmentally responsible way possible. This largely concerns the selection of laundry detergent, the subject of this article. Certainly, hotel policies regarding changing linens for multiple-night guests can significantly affect the environment by reducing the load and therefore the energy, water, and waste produced. READ MORE

What characterizes full-service properties from a sustainability perspective compared to more limited-service properties is that, essentially, they have just more of the same. Except for restaurants, the additional facilities and equipment are similar to what most properties, however small, have in their guest rooms, lobby, and front office. The expanded dimension of full-service properties means more need - and opportunity - to apply energy- and water-saving operations, to eliminate waste and toxins, and generally to provide a healthful and vibrant guest environment. READ MORE

Nowhere does the conventional clash between comfort and guest satisfaction, on the one hand, and the stereotypical austerity of sustainability, on the other, become as intense as at properties designed as playgrounds and pleasure places for guests - resorts foremost among them. Does a concern with fostering human health and environmental quality have a role here? Given the title of this article and its author, you could presume we think it does. As with spas (described in an earlier article in this series), the concept of promoting a more healthful place in which to play, eat, and sleep is fully compatible with the goals of resorts. With people spending most of their awake time at resorts, in contrast to many other kinds of properties, and wanting to derive maximum pleasure from their stay, all the benefits of a greener environment come into play. READ MORE

This article in our ongoing series addressing sustainability in different sectors of the lodging industry focuses on properties with conference centers. These are defined by the International Association of Conference Centers as properties where a minimum of 60% of total revenue from guest rooms, meeting space, food and beverage, conference technology (A/V), and conference services is conference-related. We will look at those aspects of conference centers that have special opportunities and needs from the perspective of improving environmental sustainability. First we will discuss the institutional framework, then some substantive issues of particular importance to conference centers. READ MORE

With this article, we begin a series of applications of sustainability to particular segments of the lodging industry: spas, conference centers, resorts, and full-service hotels. The intention is to focus on those aspects of the segment that have special opportunities and needs from the perspective of improving environmental sustainability. The need for and interest in health and sustainability could not be more intrinsic and central to the spa segment, which is dedicated to improving well-being and healthfulness. A recent survey of spa industry professionals completed by TREC International Inc. for the International Spa Association (ISPA) revealed that 46% of respondents indicated they want to reduce or eliminate the use of toxic products, while 52% reported they are currently selecting green products and services or are planning to go "green." In this article, we will look at issues related to spa facilities as well as the operations and internal environments therein. By addressing environmental sustainability, many spa operators are now finding that it is an integral foundation for their business as well as for society at large. READ MORE

This article outlines the key elements of environmental program design that corporate hotel executives can use to ensure that environmental programs they implement are not only successful in reducing the environmental impacts of their brand's services, but that they are also profitable and efficiently utilize resources available throughout the organization. READ MORE

In our last article, we outlined how hospitality companies can develop and implement corporate environmental programs throughout their organization. One of their most important aspects is how to engage employees in the realization of a brand's environmental goals, while also addressing their training needs for new policies that are developed. In this article we focus on building an employee recognition program that supports the implementation of a new environmental program and can provide staff with training and leadership opportunities. READ MORE

In the hotel industry, customer service positions require exceptional interpersonal skills. The ability to deal with a wide range of personalities--he flexibility to adapt quickly to changing situations and patience are key. When hiring for these positions, it can be difficult to get a clear sense of a candidate's true fit for the position at hand - most people put their best foot forward during job interviews, but do they really have the capabilities and characteristics needed to be successful on the job? And, if you do hire whom you consider to be the right candidate, can you have any assurance that he or she will remain on the job? READ MORE

Hiring the wrong customer service employees can become a public relations nightmare when a frustrated hotel guest complains about an experience or tells friends about it. The Internet compounds the effects of negative word of mouth. A quick Google search will pull up reviews of nearly every hotel, restaurant or travel destination in the world. And some websites are dedicated to helping customers spread the word about their experiences. For example, popular websites such as planetfeedback.com or yelp.com post customers' comments from on their experience with a variety of industries - this is positive or negative feedback to which anyone online has access. READ MORE

Making bad hires in the hotel industry can result in more than just lost time and wages, extra paperwork and personal trauma for those involved. It can cause severe, even irreparable, damage to a hotel's reputation and loss of revenue due to cancellations, lack of repeat business and poisonous word of mouth. Hotel guests all have memorable moments about their stay. For some, it's the spectacular oceanfront view. For others, it's the four-star steakhouse downstairs. Amenities like pillow-top beds or HD TVs might also linger in their minds. But for the discerning guest, it's the four-star customer service...or the lack thereof. If a guest is left uattended at check-in or has to wait over an hour for his luggage to be delivered to the room, the blame isn't going to fall solely on the shoulders of those responsible for those tasks. It's the hotel as a whole that will suffer. READ MORE

The emergence of Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) has changed traditional thinking when it comes to envisioning, designing, and building information technology (IT) systems in the modern hospitality enterprise. SOA brings a renewed emphasis on improving leverage of IT investments through reuse while simultaneously allowing unprecedented amounts of business flexibility. READ MORE

The links between hospitality marketing promotions and guest satisfaction are often tenuous, leading to strained discussions between marketers and hospitality property and executive managers. Marketers focus on top-line results, sometimes to the detriment of guest relationships, while managers might be more skeptical about pursuing potential revenue spikes that could reduce guest satisfaction. And despite well-intentioned ingenuity, marketing programs don't always deliver as expected. But what if, like the oracle of Delphi, a hospitality company could look into the future, predicting which marketing programs would yield the best results while not decreasing guest satisfaction. The oracle would likely receive gratitude in the form of improved metrics, satisfied guests, and happy senior managers or owners. READ MORE