HOTELS

Ray Burger

Keeping Your Hotel Green, Part III
August 7, 2008

Today we look at the last of three environmental actions that business travelers expect lodging facilities to be taking:

Placing cards in rooms to let guests request that sheets and towels not be changed

In the early 1990s, what was then Bass or Six Continents, but what is now InterContinental Hotels Group, launched this environmental initiative as a cornerstone of its environmental program. During the past 17 or 18 years, there have been no significant changes to this program, which now is estimated to be in place in one form or another in more than 70% of the lodging properties in the United States.

For these programs to be credible, execution (i.e. communication and staff training) needs to improve.

According to the Deloitte survey, approximately 30% of guests say they have requested that sheets and/or towels not be changed but then experienced the hotel staff changing them anyway.

Most hotels with a 30% failure rate on any other aspect of their operations would take drastic and immediate corrective action.

Maybe an industry standard training procedure would be helpful... Does any hotel company do a great job of training on this topic?

I would also suggest that there are more effective ways to communicate with guests and obtain higher percentages of participation.

As a starting point for improving your linen and towel re-use program, read the following article:

Invoking Social Norms: A Social Psychology Perspective on Improving Hotels' Linen-Reuse Programs

As food for thought, a hotel owner or manager may wish to ensure that environmental initiatives visible (or that should be visible) to guests are well executed, while at the same time focusing on the best ways to communicate the level of commitment both internally and externally.

Posted by Ray Burger on August 7, 2008 | Comments (0)