Incentives and integration
Providing a clear incentive to be more environmentally friendly is key to encouraging guests, as well as hotels and chains, to participate in green initiatives, argues cluster director of technology for Mövenpick, Issam Abbas.
“With the eco-friendly room and the guest rewards/incentive scheme, it’s all about integration between the in-room management system (e.g. inncom), the telephone system (e.g. Cisco Call Manager/Nevotek), and the property management system (e.g. Opera),” he says.
“Most of the hotels have the above mentioned systems installed, however, not integrated. A minor integration would make those systems talk to each other and come up with an “eco-friendly” room feature. This would materialise by programming a button on the guest room phone, so that when it is pressed it dims the guest room lights and sets the AC to energy saving mode.
That’s when the incentive counter on the PMS system starts ticking and the more hours the guest spends on “eco-friendly” mode the more incentive/rewards he/she gets. Those rewards could be free room nights, meals, and so on,” Abbas adds
And making the most of the available technology can have a significant effect on a hotel’s energy output, says Rotana corporate vice president IT, Samir Abi Frem.
“When it comes to energy consumption and savings, the in-room management system is one of the most important systems we have,” says Frem.
“Using the door lock card, we are able to identify whether a staff member or a guest is in the room, and alter the settings accordingly. The system also identifies when there is no one in the room, so the air-conditioning and lights will stay off. This way we can save energy without compromising on guest comfort,” he adds.
The future
The apparent simplicity of becoming a greener hotel suggests that more hoteliers will look at adopting green technology solutions over time, argues Lord.
“I think with the emerging trends in technology there is every reason to be greener. There is a lot out there about the way that you would power a building; you would do all sorts of things in the future that we haven’t yet looked in to. We have a building and our aim is just to make it as sustainable and as responsible as possible and when you have got that kind of building, you’re limited in the amount of technology that you can bring through — it is things like waterless urinals, it’s cutting down on that water. I don’t ever think we’ll get to waterless showers over here but I think they do exist somewhere,” says Lord.
And, says Hakim, with the introduction of many smaller environmentally friendly technology products, hoteliers can easily use green solutions across their properties.
“We strive to make it easy to save energy and reduce the effects of climate change by enabling consumers to make simple choices about the products they buy and the impact they have before, during and at the end of their life cycle,” he asserts.
“Philips has a wide range of energy saving consumer lifestyle products from TVs and DVDs to irons and vacuum cleaners designed to conveniently reduce their impact on the environment without compromising on performance or design.
We reported that 31% of total 2009 sales stemmed from the sale of green products compared to 22% in 2008,” Hakim adds.
Abraham believes that the ease of ‘going-green’ will prompt an increase in hotels utilising the available green technology in future.
“Of course more hotels will look at green solutions because it has proven to be a perfect business model and the ROI is clear,” he says. “It is just a matter of time before this trend will grow, and it is already off to a great start — especially with international organisations recognising such efforts and awarding hotels and executives accordingly.”
There is no question that the future will see more hotels adopting an eco-friendly stance with their technology, says Zakaria.
“There will be more hotels going green because customers are asking for this, because governments are legislating for this, and also because hotels themselves are looking to differentiate. The added bonus from ABB’s point of view is that our solutions actually increase the comfort of guests in addition to saving energy, so it’s a win-win situation from the hotel’s perspective; they save money and they improve their customer experience,” he asserts.
And with clear economic and environmental rewards and the technology to make it happen, the future, it would seem, is green.
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