How sustainable is your hotel stay? Why you don’t need buffet spreads, bottled water or courtesy toothbrushes
- Hotels in Cambodia have begun bottling their own water; chefs at a Hong Kong-based luxury hotel group have pushed development of a sustainable sourcing app
- With guests expecting their stay to be environment-friendly, hotels have re-examined their food offerings and plastic use, and are looking to recycle more
Gone are the days when a hotel could put a card in guest bathrooms detailing its efforts to change the towels only when necessary and get away with calling that a “green programme”. Today’s well-informed travellers demand more substantive evidence of sustainability, and luxury hotels are keen to show their environment-friendly credentials.
Hong Kong is the fastest growing hotel market in Asia, according to property services firms JLL, so what are the city’s hotels doing to reduce their impact on the environment?
“You should never try and guilt-trip a guest into trying to save the environment. That’s not a five-star experience, that’s greenwash,” says architect and designer Bill Bensley, laughing at the idea.
Bensley says he sees a lot of greenwashing – unsubstantiated or misleading claims about the environmental benefits of a product or service – in the industry. He’s also disappointed that big hotel groups continue to offer packaged razors and toothbrushes and branded packaged water in guest rooms.
“We don’t need it because everyone travels with their own stuff. We know that if you put it there, even if people have their own toothbrush or whatever, they will use it one time. It’s the idea of offering a single-use plastic experience that’s wrong. This is a hot issue that could be easily solved, it’s low-hanging fruit,” he says.