With climate change being the centre of focus around the world, conservation of environment is the next logical step.
However the hospitality industry is not particularly known for its environmentally friendly ways, so the kind of measures taken by the Millenium Hotel, Abu Dhabi, come as a breath of fresh air – quite literally!
Moine Kandil, general manager, Millenium hotel, Abu Dhabi, believes that little things in our lives where changes is needed, start within us as human beings before it can move on to a bigger social level and that is also the case with awareness of the environment. “This year the Millennium Hotel is busy protecting the environment and greening up the hospitality industry. It is a very prominent global issue. We strongly believe that the awareness of the environment begin with little things in our lives where changes need to start within us as human beings before we proceed to a social level.
“One of our many initiatives has been the addition yet another non-smoking floor to our three existing ones with 21 rooms, so now the hotel has a total of 84 non-smoking rooms.”
The hotel industry is also infamous for the vast about of water and energy it consumes, so there is a need to focus on control and reduce waste. Kandil said, “On our part we have introduced a lot of environment friendly products like long life energy conserving bulbs. These use the latest technology in compressors units for energy conservation as well as a Building Management System which conserves and regulates the air-conditioning and electricity in different areas of the hotel.”
Recycling is one area which needs to be paid special attention as the hospitality industry is one sector where a lot of waste is generated, but here too, the hotel is working with, the Abu Dhabi Municipality to implement what Kandil calls the 3 Rs: Reuse, Reduce and Recycle.
“We must not wait until huge damage is done to the environment and reaching the stage of going beyond the point of no return but we can all work hand in hand to quickly engender the spirit of importance of saving our one and only planet,” said Kandil.
The hotel conducted two cleaning campaigns last year, with management and staff cleaning the area around Khalifa Street and Ras Al Akhdar public beach. The hotel has replaced normal garbage bags with eco-friendly ones and stickers in the bathrooms serve as a reminder of the water wasted in washing towels everyday.
“We are now working on a workshop for children aged five to 15 years from different schools to encourage and support ecological consciousness. My paramount mission is to surge forward to turn Millennium hotel, Abu Dhabi into a green, environmental friendly hotel and instil in the minds of the people the importance of keeping the environment clean whereby taking care of it must become a way of life,” said Kandil.
The hotel posted occupancy rates of 80 per cent in 2006, and expects that number to climb to 87 per cent in 2007. To that end, Kandil said, the hotel is looking at new source markets, such as France and the Far Eastern markets, while also targeting the exploding MICE sector.