BASSETERRE, ST. KITTS: Small hotels and other tourism-oriented properties in St. Kitts and Nevis are being encouraged to get on board an environmental management programme that would result in substantial savings.
In the Federation is Ms Jeannelle Blanchard, the Regional Project Coordinator for the Caribbean Hotel Environmental Management Initiative (CHEMI). She is promoting the benefits of the programme by helping hotels, guesthouses, villas and apartments to save water, energy and materials thus reducing their operating costs.
CHEMI comes courtesy of the Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism (CAST), the environmental arm of the Caribbean Hotel Association, and is being implemented with the assistance of the PA Consulting Group. It is an initiative of CAST with funding coming from the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
Speaking with SKNIS today, Ms Blanchard explained that the process is done through Environmental Walk-Through that are offered free of charge. "What we have found is that environmental management is actually a very effective cost cutting tool. We have found that between 10 to 20 percent of operating costs in many small hotels are utility related, and the environmental management that we are pushing focuses on reducing utility consumption.
"We are currently working with a tool called an Environmental Walk-through. It's a half-day environmental assessment where a trained assessor comes on property, spends half a day looking at the hotel's operations and its facilities, and gives management ideas on how costs can be reduced, either through a linen reuse programme that uses less energy and less water, or by using compact florescent bulbs that use less energy and the bulbs last for a longer time, or using a faucet aerator that reduces the amount of water that comes out of the pipe and so reduces your water usage and your water bill," explained Blanchard.
There is an additional and important benefit for participating properties, because they can use the fact that they are "going green" as a marketing tool. "More and more the discerning traveler is interested in staying in properties they know are contributing to protecting the destination, or they are interested in staying in a property that's green. This is especially true for the European market, where I'll say as much as 75 percent of the tourists are interested in staying in a green property.
"You know, you get the comment that my guests may think that I am being cheap, that I am skimming on water, but if you explain it to them, from the beginning it's on your website, it's on your property that we are committed to being green, and this is what we do. We recycle. We wash your towels every two days unless you tell us otherwise, things like that, you can get your guests on board and use that as a marketing aspect," said Blanchard.
Those properties that fully participate in the process would be taken through to Green Globe Certification, which is a certification that indicates that a hotel has exhibited a commitment to environmental management.
