An increasingly number of travellers evaluate the sustainability practices followed by hotels as a key factor while deciding their stay options. While most hotels have already embarked on the sustainability route, they now want to ensure heightened guest participation in their go-green programmes.
Till recently, these were limited to avoiding water wastage or requesting guests to reuse towels and linen. However, Vineesh Kurup, General Manager of ibis Chennai City Centre and ibis Chennai Sipcot believes that with growing awareness about sustainability, guests expect more from hotels and are also willing to play their part.
Last year, ibis Chennai City Centre and ibis Chennai Sipcot offered its customers seed bombs, which are essentially seeds wrapped in compost and can be planted in soil anywhere. Most guests enthusiastically in this initiative and even sent pictures of their efforts later. According to Kurup, this underlines that customers are keen to be a part of sustainability measures undertaken by hotels.
From its end, his efforts are now centered on removing all types of plastic from guestrooms. The management has already found paper and wooden alternatives for stirrers and forks. Its next attempt is to replacing packaged drinking water with glass bottles, and it hopes to achieve this soon.
ibis Chennai City Centre and ibis Chennai Sipcot plans to make green programmes a growing feature of its hotel management. Tweaking existing practices to enlist guest participation in this endeavour will help in reduce its operational expenses and environmental burden, at the same time.
