Adam Kirby joined HOTELS magazine in December 2006 after three years in the newspaper business in Wisconsin. He graduated in 2003 from Marquette University in Milwaukee, where he was editor of the campus paper. While living in Milwaukee, Adam worked stints as a bellman at Radisson Hotel Milwaukee West and in the F&B department at Ambassador Hotel. He is a native of suburban Chicago and is a passionate fan of the Chicago White Sox baseball team.
The technology focus of this month’s issue of HOTELS is also the hottest buzzword in the industry: green. The real story of green, like most niches of hotel technology, is less about the products themselves than about the innovative ways hoteliers are applying them to create a better guest experience, as well as an improved bottom line. And when you’re talking green, there’s the added benefit of helping the world, which is a nice bonus.

Case in point, The Talbott Hotel in Chicago has installed InnCom’s ecoMode energy management systems—a creatively simple gadget in its own right—and is inviting guests to use it on a volunteer basis, with the reward of gift cards for at-home renewable energy credits. Read more about the Talbott and other creative energy management applications here.

In that article, we also profile Habitat Suites Hotel in Austin, Texas, which is among the most enthusiastically green hotels anywhere. Habitat has a feature on its Web site that lets visitors view the actual real-time output of its 108 solar panels, plus graphs illustrating solar power generation for the past month and year.

“That sort of thing is nice for people to get to see,” says Habitat GM Natalie Marquis, “because it’s kind of hard for people to wrap their heads around it, so at least if there’s some sort of data they can see, it helps them to understand it.”

The online meter even once helped alert hotel staff to a building maintenance issue—some kid was periodically monitoring the meters as part of a science project and noticed that one of the hotel’s buildings was using more energy than the others. He notified the hotel, and sure enough, there was a problem.

Similar to Habitat’s Web meters, Gaia Napa Valley Hotel in California posts energy usage meters in its lobbies for its guests to see.

There’s a ton of really cool green technologies out there—if you’re looking to do some eco-friendly upgrades, Ray Burger’s Pineapple Hospitality is a decent place to start your search. Also, follow the advice of Investors Hospitality Management CEO John DiGuiseppe and seek out discounts from your local utility company. Many utilities give discounts and rebates for making your property more energy efficient, so it’s at least worth a phone call. Click here to read more about DiGuiseppe’s eco-friendly management strategies.

At HOTELS, we’re hopeful and optimistic that the industry’s recent embrace of going green is a long-term trend and not merely a fleeting fad. Help us keep the industry moving forward by keeping us updated on the latest green products, strategies and ideas, and we’ll pass the word along in future issues of the magazine or here online.

Email me at adam.kirby@reedbusiness.com, or post a comment on this blog. Also, remember to keep up with green news via our new dedicated green news channel, located here.