The Intercontinental Hotel Group is taking their corporate responsibility to a new level and using the power of Web 2.0 to design the most environmentally friendly hotel.

Visitors to the website can review a hotel design, check the new environmentally friendly features and contribute new ideas to improve them - the interactive site allows users to wander through the hotel reception, go to a meeting room or lets you into a bedroom and points out what is new. And this is where you get involved - one gets to rate on a scale of one to five as to how good an innovation it is and add further comments.

The key areas in focus are

• Energy conservation
• Recycling
• Water Conservation
• Destination conservation

Definitely worth a visit to check out a great collaborative approach as well as to get some very good ideas in the above areas.

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J.W. “Bill” Marriott, Jr., chairman and CEO of Marriott International at the World Travel and Tourism Council Summit in Dubai (20-22 April)in his key note address.

He made this particular remark in connection with Marriotts ambitious new project to help protect the planet partnering with the Brazilian State of Amazonas to preserve and protect 1.4 million acres of the Amazon Rainforest.

His other major theme was Travel mobility and trade. “Every time an international visitor visits Palm Island (Dubai), or shops on New York’s Fifth Avenue or Tokyo’s Ginza, it’s the same as exporting a Caterpillar tractor, an Airbus jet, a Sony Playstation or… oil.

Asking governments to encourage and facilitate travel, he pointed out that the US share of overseas international travel has fallen 8% since 2000 while rising 28% in the rest of the world and said that it was a huge lost opportunity for America.

Read the complete speech

We have had our share of discussions on Revpar and Gopar - now is it the turn of Carepar?

Carepar.co.uk defines it as - ”A unit of measurement for hotels and venues stating the carbon emission per available room per day, or function room per half day”

Carepar believes that as businesses increasingly focus on the CSR (Corporate & Social Responsibility) credentials of their supply chain as part of their procurement process, participation in carePAR monitoring makes sound commercial sense as much as it makes sound ethical sense.

Will Carepar be the best benchmark in green hoteliering hotels yet?  The concept name does help given that it takes after the known entities like Gopar and Revpar (although it hs no direct links) ….but as a new company and concept, we will have to wait and watch.

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