When I checked in after dark to the Inn at Lost Creek in Telluride's Mountain Village a week ago yesterday, I was appalled at the excess illumination in my room. As I wrote then, every single light in my little suite was blazing. I called housekeeping the next morning and asked for some electricity restraint, and as requested, only the foyer lights were turned on during subsequent evenings' turndown service.
But even better was the impact that even a enviro-rant like mine produced. The inn's sales and marketing manager, Karl Chase, told me that because of my alert, the inn would in the future add a question about additional energy conservation efforts in the pre-arrival questions that are asked of incoming guests. Perhaps both Lost Creek management and I got a big hit of good eco-karma from that one.
He also invited me on a back-of-the-house tour to show how green the hotel is -- and it seems to me to be "very green." When the hotel was built 11 years ago, it was tightly constructed with Pella low-E double-paned windows (obvious to any guest who looks), an energy-efficient, thermitic water heating system and other mechanicals that were state of the art for its time and have held up well.
Other green practices that this behind-the-scenes tour revealed:
- Restaurant 9545 uses eco-friendly compostable/recyclable containers, including sugarcane-based clamshell to-go boxes and utensils instead of plastic (top photo)
- No disposables used in the employee break room
- Linens that are no longer usable by a first-rate hotel donated for resale at the Second Chance Humane Society shop in nearby Ridgway
- Cleaning rags are stained or frayed restaurant napkins, dyed so they don't reappear in the restaurant
- As lightbulbs burn out, they are being replaced by CF bulbs; the "always-on" hallway lights are have been the first to be replaced; hotel is stockpiling CF replacement bulbs (center photo) but not discarding those incandescents that still have some life left in them
- Cleaning chemicals are green and also bought concentrated in bulk, mixed at the hotel and refilled into reusable spray bottles to keep excess packaging out of the waste stream (bottom photo)
- The executive boardroom, a small conference space, has outside windows so groups can opt for daylight rather than turning on all the lights all the ti
me - Low-flow toilets in all bathrooms
- Flex-fuel shuttle vans
- Trash separated and recycled
I appreciate Karl's taking the time to show me these green practices, and I urge environmentally concerned travelers anywhere to go beyond simply reusing linens to help the hotel business be as evironmentally-oriented as possible. Don't be shy about asking what a property's green practices and let hotel management know that these practices are important to you. You probably won't get the kind of tour that I did, but hotel managers will answer your questions and listen to your concerns. IMO, there is no more responsive a business than the hospitality industry -- especially at higher-end hotels. Repeat business and word of mouth are important to them.
With CNN in the background as I write this, reporting on the current crisis in the auto industry, I have to say that if only the Big Three had been as proactive and also paid as much attention to what the public wants as the hotel industry, execs wouldn't be begging Congress for a bailout right now.
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