Opportunities in renewable energy in tourism Our initial assessment for The Birchwood Hotel down town St. Petersburg focused on examining key areas for sustainable building practices consistent with Green Key guidelines. The areas assessed were corporate environmental management, housekeeping, conference and meeting spaces, food and beverage, engineering and maintenance. Summing up the condition of each system served as a target for the property owners to make improvements for their short and long-term needs that will align the property’s mission and goals to be more in line with Energy Conservation and Sustainable Business practices. The refurbished property has been able to achieve its own décor and exclusive identity, but after the assessment was graded, it was only able to earn one Green Key certification.
Problems Boutique hotels and resorts are independently branded and operated often creating a difficult situation to achieve the required economies of scale; and in these present hostile economic and political problems it results in fierce competition amongst other hotels. All give you similar options, almost identical pricing, and one-of-a-kind experience. This property has been able to achieve adequate performance when the market was good, but now that things are tougher, they are suffering due to poorly conceived. The property doesn’t have the size and scale to undertake international marketing and sales at competitive levels, and lack of cash flow means low
The following report is a detailed analysis and diagnosis of the current situation at The Stonington Beach Hotel, Bermuda. Many aspects are considered that include the effect that maintaining the property has on human resources, marketing and the organizational structure of the business. Recommendations are made and then discussed further.
According to a “go green” blog named 2B Green World Website-LEED Consultants, “buildings represent over 50% of US wealth; $800 billion is the amount of renovation and new construction in the United States, buildings account for 1/6 of the worlds freshwater withdrawals, ¼ of its wood harvest and 2/5 of its material and energy flow” (Go Green Facts 1).These figures represent the disadvantages of a world without green building. Throughout this report the focus is on LEED certification and accreditation, and the impact LEED has on several different service firms. The report begins with background information about the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), LEED, and LEED
Tourism is one of the most international industries. Globalisation is the gradual forging of links between groups and societies until they finally reach around the globe in several directions (Smith, D,2006). Globalization is one of the serious challenges facing managers today. It is critical to develop services that are able to satisfy a highly diverse customer base (Ueltschy et al., 2007) Now to keep up with the rising levels of globalization in the hotel industry, there’s a need to understand not only the positive, but also the negative impacts of globalisation. I’ll also talk about the growth and rise of one of the most respected brands in the hospitality industry - the Hilton Hotels. Throughout the evolution of this famous organization, the Hilton has
"Sustainable Architecture" - this phrase in recent years is mentioned a lot. The concept of "sustainable architecture" is associated, even identified with the concept of green architecture, ecological architecture, environmentally friendly, energy efficient ... to reach a stable value for the environment human life, reduce negative impacts on the environment in the present and future. However, although this interpretation is correct, but only one aspect, because that's what people are missing and need to achieve. Try to reach and understanding of sustainable architecture in general and more simple ...
Environmentalism has become a great concern in all sectors of business, evidenced by the recent jump in energy prices, and empirical data provided by several different environmental and scientific agencies. The Hotel industry is no different, in fact, it would benefit greatly from the recent push for all businesses and business sectors to "Go Green." Yet, the industry has long resisted the changes, and is only recently catching up to other industries that have converted their operations to have greener strategies.
According to Part A, Hilton Surfers Paradise Residences (HSPR) is recommended to pay more attention to the international tourists and develop a marketing strategy to improve their satisfaction in order to attract them to their hotel. At the same time, sustainability has already become the major challenge for the whole hospitality industry, therefore, energy saving and recycle system should be established in the future operation. The first recommendation is made due to competitive needs and the ideal spot of HSPR that may well be attractive to international tourists. The second is recommended due to legislation introduced by the Australia government who announced that the carbon tax will be introduced in 2012 in Australia and that hotels have to become "green". It may be that the two recommendations can be integrated , attracting international tourists and 'greening' the environment at the same time (Aaker et al, 2004), thereby saving HSPR money.
Green buildings could become one of the main factors to preserve our rapidly decaying environment. There is no easy way to define a green building, but a green building is essentially a structure that amplifies the positives and mitigates the negatives throughout the entire life cycle of the building (Kriss, 2014). There are many definitions for a green building, but all of them include the planning, designing, constructing, and operating of the building while taking into huge considerations of the energy use, water use, indoor air environment, materials used and the effect it has on the site the green building is being built on. The first green buildings dates back to as far as the 1970’s, when solar panels went from experiments to reality. Green buildings were not as popular as they are today due to their extremely high pricing. With technology rapidly growing, solar panels are becoming cheaper and cheaper, making the transition to creating green buildings more affordable. This is the primary reason for the increased growth of green buildings today. A modern company that is paving the way to the growth of green buildings named LEED, Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, focuses primarily on new and effective ideas for environmentally friendly buildings projects. With more than 60,000 commercial projects worldwide and 1.7 million square feet being certified every day, LEED is one of the leading groups for promoting green buildings. LEED has popularized the entire
Amber Inn & Suites is a 250 property hotel chain located in 10 western and Rocky Mountain States (Kerin & Peterson, 2010). The company was founded in 1979 and they operate 200 Amber Inn properties and 50 Amber Inn & Suites properties (Kerin & Peterson, 2010). They have 30,000 total rooms with an average of 120 rooms per property (Kerin & Peterson, 2010). The company has had five consecutive unprofitable years and the company wants to be profitable within two years. This case will provide a summary an analysis of Amber Inn’s options and an examination of their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats.
The author starts the article by telling about her experience when she saw all the amazing energy efficient gadgets, applications, etc. at DPR Construction in San Francisco. This lead to hear thinking about how other energy efficient building held up after accountants moved in. In most cases, the spaced did not perform as expected or the platinum score was lowered. Information is gathered from occupants and organizations have not come up with an accurate way to use this information. Some even argue that LEED is a plaque and that its buildings are usually on par with non-LEED buildings when comparing them to be sustainable. LEED and other organizations are trying to receive data and occupants’ experiences in order to improve a buildings performance.
In the book Building Green Skyscrapers by Mary Reid, the solution that would be more effective to solve the problems that skyscrapers create is the Hearst Tower in New York City because this tower saves water and steel. First, the Hearst Tower saves water and also reuses it at the same time. It is used as a cooling system and for watering the plants. In the text, it states “The waterfall cools and adds moisture and freshness to the dry indoor air. The water comes from rainwater that the Hearst Tower collects on the roof” (Reid 20). This proves that this building is very eco-friendly and that it can help people save water. Next, the Hearst Tower saves steel, because they used the steel that they recycled to build the buildings. In the text,
Many hotels utilize sustainability as a strategy setting for operations, and as a critical success factor (Boerner, 2010). A company become more sustainable by evaluating the positive and negative environmental, economic, and socio cultural impacts on hospitality industry and helps the operation to be in profit and minimize waste or harmful aspects. Environmental certification program for hotels Provides technical guidance. Participating facilities area warded between 1and5 Green Keys depending on loyalty to criteria (LRA Worldwide,
DCCW UTS Green building is made in Sydney, Australia. The building is made by Canadian-American Architect namely Mr. Frank Gehry. Dr Chau Chak, who is an Australian-Chinese business person, donated $20 million for this building. The building is actually a Business School building for the University of Technology in Sydney. This twelve storey building is meant for the
The Economic conditions challenge the hotel to achieve business and profit margins. Due to the economic crisis, it is becoming difficult for the hotel to maintain Ionian Hotel Enterprises S.A. brand as a lesser amount of capital given to run the operation.
Owned hotels is not a scalable business model with the constraints of capital and also low returns business. Hotel Services / Royalty based business model offering them scope for improving the scale, higher margins and profitability. Even though improvement in margins and profitability ratios is positive, steep rise in debt is a key concern. As the company is aggressively growing its assets, the need for higher capital is consistently raising. As the company is spending over and above its internal accruals, the debt is constantly inching up. However, if the increase in cash flow from operations outpaces capex requirement, positive free cash flow will be generated. This will help in the re-payment of debts.
Having just analyzed the general environment surrounding the upscale and luxury hotel industry, the next step in determining whether such an industry is attractive or not is to conduct an in depth external analysis of the threats and opportunities facing the industry. Thanks to the help of Michael Porter and his Five Forces Model, this analysis is not nearly as difficult or as time consuming as it may seem. According to Porter, there are five forces which determine the competitive intensity and therefore attractiveness of a market. These forces include the threat of entry, the threat of rivalry, the threat of substitutes, the threat of buyers,