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Environmental Enrichment for the Lodging Industry: A Toolkit
Graphic Source:
Ye Olde England Inne, Stowe, Vermont |
This program aims to help YOU, the owner, operator or employee of a hospitality facility. The environmental impact
and costs of tourism and hospitality (including restaurants) have become the object of intense interest within the
industry, within government, and among the general public. |
Lodging and the Environment: Natural Allies
There are good reasons for you to be deeply interested in the environmental impact of your hotel or restaurant.
These considerations are divided among:
| Practical Day-to-Day Improvements |
Sensible Long-Term Planning |
Constructive Eco-Tourism |
- This program aims at improving the day-to-day operation and maintenance of hospitality and food service facilities.
Simple decisions and reasonable precautions can save you money, improve the quality of experience for your patrons,
and ensure the sustainability of your location as an attraction and environmental asset.
To do this the program will lead you room by room through a "virtual hotel", demonstrating environmental concerns
and opportunities in each location. There are 360-degree room panoramas that allow you to view and assess these
opportunities.
You can then assess your own situation through ten interactive questionnaires, locating those improvements that will
have the most beneficial results for the environment, for your guests, and for your own operations. |
There are, of course, large issues and impacts of hospitality facilities and tourism that occur at the broad planning
level. These center around the direct and indirect impacts of facilities location and construction, along with the
recreational activities associated with them. Careful decisions about location and design can also increase the
value of your facility, enrich your patrons' experience and ensure the future of your site as an attraction and
environment asset. These considerations are not covered in detail in this program, but here is a preliminary matrix
of potential impacts and mitigative measures, and sample links to some eco-tourism sites. |
According to the World Conservation Union (1996) Ecotourism is: "...environmentally responsible travel and visitation
to relatively undisturbed natural areas, in order to enjoy and appreciate nature (and any accompanying cultural
features - both past and present) that:
- promotes conservation
- has low negative visitor impact
- provides for beneficially active socioeconomic involvement of local populations
Ecotourism builds upon the beauty and interest of the environmental and local cultures
as major attractions for tourism. It can operate at and of several levels, ranging from
easy access and information on local environmental attractions to very close and intense
personal interaction with local cultures and organizations in enjoying, monitoring and improving
the local environment. For further information click here for ecotourism.
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Note: This program is based upon the experience of hospitality owners, operators and employees in many different
situations in many different countries. It is offered to you as a sample of possible approaches; there is no one
way to run an environmentally sound hotel or restaurant. Your patrons or your government may have particular interests
or requirements. Take and use those things that are helpful for your own situation.
Featuring the Virtual Hotel
During the virtual hotel tour the user can follow the impact of:
Energy Management
Solid Waste Controls
Water Conservation
Air Quality
Purchasing Management,
OR
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through the areas of:
* Restaurant and Bar
* Front Desk
* Housekeeping
* Administrative Office
* Maintenance
* Recreation
* Grounds and Landscaping |
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| Audiences: Innkeepers, Hotel and Motel Managers, Resort Operators,
Cruise Ship Operators, Bed & Breakfast Owners, Groundskeepers, Housekeping Management and Hotel Staff.
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View Environmental Enrichment for the Lodging Industry: A Toolkit online,
or
self-extracting zipfile (1 Mb)
-OR-
hotel.zip zipfile (986 Kb)
The second option is primarily for Macintosh users.
Installation:
To install, copy the zipfile (hotel.exe or hotel.zip) into a
subdirectory on your hard disk, then double-click it to uncompress
and install
the program.
You can start the program by opening
your Web browser and aiming it at C:\Environmental Enrichment for the Lodging Industry: A Toolkit\hotel\src\title.htm
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- Created: 2002 by Renee Gunn, Susan Childress, Wei Wu, and Keith Sullivan, all of Purdue University;
and
Alfred Krause and Glynis Zywicki of USEPA.
- Size: 10 MB uncompressed, 9 MB compressed
- Operating system: HTML
- Other requirements: Any computer with a Web browser.
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