NEW YORK—Eleven members of the Hotel Association of New York City (HANYC) have partnered with the Department of Environmental Protection and NYC & Company to take the “New York City Hotel Water Conservation Challenge,” aiming to reduce each hotel’s water consumption by 5% and save a total of approximately 13 million gallons of water each year.
The participating hotels include: The Waldorf-Astoria, The Ritz-Carlton Central Park, The InterContinental Times Square, The InterContinental Barclay New York, The Millennium Broadway, Tryp NYC, Sheraton TriBeca, The New Yorker, Grand Hyatt New York, Holiday Inn Express and The Carlton.
According to HANYC’s CEO Joseph E. Spinnato, the attitude toward water conservation in New York City by its hotels, staffs and guests is positive for the most part. “People are coming to realize that this is the right thing to do,” said the executive.
The Hotel Association of New York City, Inc., established in 1878, includes more than 270 member hotels representing some 75,000 rooms and 32,000 employees.
Asked why more members were not on board, Spinnato told Hotel Business, “As with most changes that come along that would possibly affect guest expectations, hotels are naturally cautious to implement them. But, we are seeing more and more hotels showing an interest in the program.”
He added, “We are pleased that a number of our member hotels are participating in the worthwhile effort to conserve water, and we encourage all of our members to consider signing on to this important initiative.”
Participating hotels are equipped with water meters and automated meter-reading devices that will track water consumption in near real time. Data from 12 months worth of water consumption by the hotels will establish a baseline profile from which to track progress in reducing water consumption. Additionally, the city will develop a tool kit of resources to help the hotels meet their conservation goals efficiently. Water-reduction strategies may range from housekeeping efforts, such as finding and repairing leaks quickly, to developing guest-facing information that encourages hotel visitors to practice water-conserving behavior. Replacing inefficient plumbing fixtures and adopting new technologies that use water minimally or reuse it to a certain extent are other considerations being explored.
Spinnato indicated as the programs get implemented, greater engagement by staff in the water-conservation effort would need to take place. “When a hotel initiates these policies, obviously staff would need to be trained as to what would be required of them,” he said.
Similarly, said Spinnato, “To implement these measures, guests should be alerted as to the efforts to conserve. Also, it is important that once informed, guests would react positively to participating in the program.”
“As New York City’s population continues to grow and we attract record numbers of tourists each year, we are planning for the long-term sustainability of our water supply,” said DEP Commissioner Carter Strickland in a statement. “In the relatively near term, the Delaware Aqueduct, which carries more than half the city’s daily water needs from our upstate reservoirs, will be temporarily shut down for necessary repairs and, in the long term, we want to reduce the amount of energy required to treat our water. I applaud the Hotel Association for joining this important effort to reduce demand for water.”
The DEP manages New York City’s water supply, providing more than one billion gallons of water a day.
According to George Fertitta, CEO of NYC & Company, the City’s official marketing, tourism and partnership organization, the city expects to welcome some 55 million visitors by 2015, with more hotels being built than ever before. “It is imperative that the sector continues to adopt new environmentally friendly initiatives like the city’s water conservation program,” he said.
In getting the message out about conserving water, both at the visitor level and even out to the boroughs where hotels are having strong growth as well, Fertitta said his organization right now is not exploring a specific water-conservation marketing campaign “as the City of New York already has efforts under way to make New York City an even greener city and prepare for more residents and tourists. We did amplify the effort via our social media channels, though, to spread the word.”
He added, “Visitors will likely learn about the water conservation efforts upon staying at the participating hotels, and there are several efforts under way, at an engineering level, that are mostly behind the scenes. As the program continues and hotels open across all five boroughs, we hope additional hotel properties will participate.”
The hotels that do so may also realize financial savings by implementing the water-conservation initiative.
“Conserving water and energy are not only positive measures which effect the environment, but by reducing the use of water and energy would reduce costs to the hotels,” said Spinnato.
For example, the 11 participating hotels consumed between 50,000 and 320,000 gallons of water each day during the last 12 months. If the 5% reduction goal is met, each hotel has the potential to realize savings of between $10,000 and $70,000 on its annual water and sewer bills based on current rates.
Fertitta added having such a program in place also helps leverage NYC’s position as a destination.
The water-conservation challenge is one part of New York City’s Water for the Future program and Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s PlaNYC, the central part of which is repairing the Delaware Aqueduct in Upstate New York, which supplies roughly half of the city’s daily drinking water needs for some nine million persons, eight million of those in New York City. Another one million residents are expected inhabit New York City by 2030, and PlaNYC was created in 2007 by Mayor Bloomberg to address the potential impact on the City.