Hotel News

 

 

Hotels Standardize “Green” Rating System

Wondering what the carbon footprint is of your hotel stay? Until now, the hospitality industry hasn’t had a consistent way of measuring a hotel or resort’s carbon footprint. A resort in Hawaii or the Colorado mountains may well have a bigger carbon footprint than a New York or Los Angeles hotel, because providing energy to those locations may require burning more fossil fuel. But you can’t generalize by location, since energy use can vary hotel by hotel. Now, there’s a new methodology for calculating the carbon footprint for hotel stays and meetings in a consistent and transparent way. The new methodology was formulated through the collaboration of the International Tourism Partnership, the World Travel & Tourism Council and 23 major hotel companies. The group, the Hotel Carbon Measurement Initiative Working Group, was formed in 2011 to address inconsistencies in measuring a property’s carbon footprint. It launched the new methodology, which has been tested at a variety of hotel types in many different locations, earlier this summer. (Source: HCMI press release)

 

Analyst Company is Bullish on Hotel Outlook for Later in the Year

PKF Hospitality Research expects the hotel industry to stay strong, forecasting the revenue per available room (RevPAR) will gain 4.9 percent in the second half of the year. It’s a little less than the 6.9 percent growth the industry saw during the first six months of the year. Demand for lodging has grown since 2010 and there have been limited increases in hotel supply. The fact that it is a presidential election years does have a chilling effect. Nonetheless, PKF expects hotels in 29 of the 50 major markets to hit occupancy levels above their long-term averages. (Source: press release)