Marriott International, which has just opened Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong, the highest hotel in the world, has cut down the water usage in its mainland hotels by 17 per cent as part of its green campaign - but shark's fin soup remains on the menu.
Marriott, the largest hotel chain in the US and the mainland, plans to open an extra 30 hotels in China by 2015. It currently has 60. It also has ambitious targets of reducing energy and water consumption by 25 per cent by 2017.
'We are well on track to achieve this across all of our hotels worldwide, which represents an enormous amount of energy and water savings over some 3,500 hotels,' said Arne Sorenson, president and chief operating officer of Marriott International. Guests staying more than one night now decide whether bed linen and towels are changed daily, low-flow shower heads and toilets have been installed, and energy and water use has been reduced in the kitchens. Between 2009 and 2010, the measures reduced water usage by 17 per cent.
'It is very evident that guests like greener products,' Sorenson said. 'They have been increasingly paying more attention to green measures adopted by hotels when they choose where to stay. Any green measure would need the support of customers. If we stopped providing hot water, that would save a lot more energy but I do not think customers would accept it.'
Several green features also mark the city's new 312-room Ritz-Carlton, which occupies floors 102 to 118 of the ICC, making it the world's highest hotel. It is the latest addition to Sun Hung Kai Property's Kowloon Station development and the newest in Ritz-Carlton's global portfolio of 75 luxury hotels, 16 of which are in Asia.
Sorenson said the goal was to make Ritz-Carlton Hong Kong an environmentally responsible structure with energy-saving features.
'In the guestrooms, we use a room control unit which is operated by a motion detector. If it does not detect anybody in the room for 45 minutes, it turns off the services in stages to save energy,' Sorenson said.
