Eric Ricaurte
A new alliance aimed at spurring sustainable hotel development in Asia by going straight to the roots – i.e. the owners who build the properties – has been launched.
Spearheaded by Greenview and a few launch partners including Marriott International, Hotel Owners for Tomorrow (HOT) is possibly the first coalition of sustainable-minded Asian hotel owners, coming at a time when the region continues to see a robust pipeline of hotels.
Eric Ricaurte, founder/CEO of Greenview, which is based in the US and has an office in Singapore, believed Asia is “the battleground for sustainable development as more hotels are going up in Asia than the rest of the world put together”.
HOT welcomes all owners to join, start the conversation among one another on sustainability, share best practices and get recognised for their efforts.
HOT is asking its members to commit to five actions for building a sustainable future: incorporate sustainability from the beginning of investment decisions; evaluate one renewable energy project and one efficiency project per property per year; routinely monitor and benchmark sustainability performance; support brand efforts; and share best practices.
Thus far, apart from Marriott, Wyndham Worldwide, Hyatt Hotels, Six Senses, TAJ Hotels, Resorts and Palaces, AKARYN Hotel Group, PATA, Horwath HTL and the International Tourism Partnership and the Global Sustainable Tourism Council are signatories of HOT. TTG Asia Publishing has also signed up as media supporter.
“By becoming a signatory, owners will not only receive distinction for helping shape the industry in their destinations, they will also benefit by avoiding the future costs of regulation, identifying opportunities for increased ROI on investments, and by gaining access to capital from equity partners which require strategy, disclosure and action on environmental, social and governance issues in order to do business,” said Ricaurte.
In an interview during the recent HICAP (Hotel Investment Conference Asia-Pacific) in Hong Kong, Ricaurte, when asked what Asian owners were not doing about sustainability, said “they are not talking about it” but added this was the same in the US years ago.
He recalled introducing sustainability to US hotel clients and they went “ya ya ya” – until they got pressed by institutional fund shareholders about their sustainable practices. “Then they really started getting into it and now you see teams that are engaged and want to find the best opportunities as there is so much innovation (in sustainable development) out there,” said Ricaurte.
In Asia, where the market is dominated by individual or family owners, a coalition like HOT is even more critical. “Some owners may be building a hotel for the first time…they may spend a lot to build an opulent lobby, but won’t spend money on, say, solar panels because they may not understand that if they look longterm, building an efficient hotel is going to save them money. Not only that, since it is family money and they want to leave a legacy for the family, how best to leave a legacy than this? So we want to make that kind of connection with them, not talk about sustainability in too technical terms,” he said.
According to Ricaurte, younger hotel owners are “the biggest opportunity”. “They get it, they are hungry and they want to make their mark,” he said.
Daphne Tan, vice president, head of development planning/feasibility & owner relations Asia-Pacific of Marriott International, said what she liked about the coalition was the chance to engage owners before they build. “A lot of times we look at how to improve waste management, energy efficiency, etc, oftentimes because it’s triggered by the need to save costs. In India a few years ago, our owners were eager to incorporate sustainable measures as energy costs were soaring, for example.
“What we like about this coalition is, why don’t we start from the beginning? It takes three to five years to plan/develop a hotel, why not look at the full spectrum and see how owners can adopt sustainable practices early on? I don’t think they think about that so the coalition can help educate owners and raise their awareness.”
