Forget about toting burlap bags and recyclable water bottles to environmentally-friendly vacation spots, I talking about the basics: Do you think twice about leaving the lights on in your hotel room while you’re throwing back Cosmos during Happy Hour in the lobby? Do you spend an hour singing in the shower because you’re not paying for the water? Do you fall asleep with the television on, and then leave it on because you can’t find the remote and don’t want to get out of bed to look for it?
Bottom line: How much do you really care about conserving water and energy when you are not at home?
According to USA Today, hotels spend close to $4 billion on energy each year, or about $2,200 per available room in the United States alone. Meaning, it costs big bucks for hotels to pay for guests who refuse to go green while on the road.
Interestingly, the paper recently conducted a survey to find out how many travelers would heed pleas from hotel execs to get serious about saving natural resources, such as electricity and water, during their stays at properties nationwide. The results were not exactly earth-shattering. As you can imagine, most business and recreation travelers are much more eco-conscious in their own homes than at hotels.
Most respondents noted that while they constantly turn off lights while they are at home to lower their utility bill, they have no qualms about flooding their hotel rooms with three or four light sources at once. What’s more, once the lights are on they typically stay on regardless of whether or not guests are in the room.
In regards to heating and cooling a hotel room, most of the survey participants confessed that they will set the thermostat to a temperature that is very comfortable. However, if they were at home, most respondents admit that they would be reluctant to crank the A/C or heat because of how it would affect their household budget.
Are you a guilty of being an anti-green traveler?
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