Starwood hotels plans to recycle hotel shampoos, soaps

by Melanie Nayer on

Some hotel guests take the mini soaps and shampoos from hotel bathrooms, others leave the pint-sized amenities behind – which option is better for the environment?

Did you know your unused hotel toiletries could be put toward recycling efforts to help people in need?

That’s the premise behind Clean the World, a social enterprise working with hotels around the world in an effort to help improve lives and protect our planet.

In an effort to give back, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. inked an agreement with Clean the World on Earth Day to collect and recycle hotel soaps, shampoos, conditioners, lotions and gels to help fight the global spread of preventable diseases. The deal would include around 500 Starwood hotels in North America (Starwood’s brands include St. Regis®, The Luxury Collection®, W®, Westin®, Le Méridien®, Sheraton®, Four Points® by Sheraton, Aloft®, and Element).

.”Our North American properties represent more than 176,000 rooms, each of which offer the highest quality soaps and bottled amenities to our guests on a daily basis,” says Denise Coll, president of Starwood Hotels in North America, in a statement. “This partnership amplifies our commitment to corporate social responsibility, and it also should make every member of our Starwood family feel better about the role they play each day in caring for our Earth and the people who inhabit it.”

According to Clean the World, an estimated 1.6 million pounds of hotel soap may be recycled each year through this partnership.

Readers: Will you think twice before swiping your hotel bath amenities now?

Lesbian couple sues hotel after being denied double room

by Sean McLachlan on

A lesbian couple is suing a hotel in England after being refused a double room.

Rebecca Nash and Hope Stubbings say they tried to check into the Brunswick Square Hotel in Brighton but were refused a room because the hotel only gives rooms to couples.

This is surprising for a number of reasons. First, it’s illegal in the UK for hotels to refuse rooms to gay and lesbian couples. Second, Brighton is England’s most popular gay and lesbian seaside town and surely the Brunswick Square Hotel has had to deal with gay guests before. And third, a court fined a bed and breakfast for refusing a room to a gay couple earlier this year.

In the earlier case, the hotel owners were defiant, saying homosexuality was against their Christian principles. In the Brighton case, it’s a matter of “he said, she said.” The manager says the couple hadn’t made a booking. The lesbian couple said the manager got angry and told them “no two boys, no two girls” in the rooms before kicking them out.

[Lesbian flag image courtesy Wikimedia Commons]

CheckYourRoom.com launches hotel personality quiz

by Melanie Nayer on

You’re probably used to booking a hotel room based on price, distance from the city center or local landmarks. You likely look at room size, what amenities are offered and whether or not there are any upgrades or promotions available. But, what if you could take that booking process one step further and add a bit of “you” into your hotel search? That’s the latest premise behind CheckYourRoom.com’s new booking tool, “What Room Are You?”

CheckYourRoom.com, a Paris-based travel startup that launched in beta earlier this year, wants to give travelers the opportunity to book a specific luxury or boutique hotel room with all the essentials like price and location, but throw ina little human touch, too. The recently launched quiz “What Room Are You?” on the booking site takes travelers through a series of lifestyle-related questions, then recommends hotels around the world based on their preferences.

Intrigued, I got a sneak peak of the new quiz and took the personality test for a spin.
The first question asks about food preference. I chose “Italian Classics” and moved along to question number two, which asked about my fashion style. I was able to quickly rule out options (a) and (c) (Preppy Classics and Bohemian Chic), and for the sake of this quiz went with “Ultimate Fashionista”, just to see where it would take me (and because some days I think I’m quite fashionable). The next series of questions asked me choose my favorite artist and then my favorite hero, from a list of four people. I was asked like I do on a Friday night (go out for drinks), what type of music I listen to (pop/rock) and what dream car I would drive (a Bentley).

After answering all seven questions, I was returned a list of nine hotels from London to Nice that fit my profile, but more importantly, stayed within my budget range.

Taking the quiz doesn’t allow you to enter in specific information like destination or distance from tourist attractions, however, the site does offer a basic booking engine where you can add in your requirements. There’s also the Room Concierge, a personalized room recommendation service that collects your individual hotel and room requests and returns results based on your information.

The “What Room Are You?” personality test is by no means a scientific way of determining what hotel you’re best suited for, but for those travelers who aren’t married to fixed price or destination, it’s a nice way to introduce new places to an upcoming trip.

As for me? I learned that while my luxury travel preferences haven’t changed much over the years, my personality test revealed I was the “romantic” type (the site will tag as one of four personalities: romantic, adventurous, classic or modern). As a “romantic” type, I like my hotel rooms to “feel cozy and warm – like a home away from home.” Not a bad assessment, especially since the majority of the hotels the site recommended to me were in Paris.

While this might not be the end-all for travel search engines, it’s a nice change of pace from the booking engines of price, location, and date.

Readers: What do you think? Would you book a room based on a personality quiz?

Tracking devices in hotel linens thwart thievery

by Laurel Miller on

In case you wondered, Big Brother is watching. In your hotel room. A Miami-based company, Linen Tracker, has patented a radio-frequency identification chip that keeps real-time inventory of frequently misplaced or stolen items such as hotel linens. Like, you know, that plushy robe you planned to take as a souvenir, or that Egyptian cotton pillowcase that sent you into such blissful slumber. The chips are also designed to help hotel managers and maids stock rooms and order supplies.

CNN reports that three hotels, in New York, Miami and Honolulu, are using Linen Trackers, and the company’s executive vice president, William Serbin, sees a bright future for the devices. “Any given month, [hotels] can lose five to 20 percent of towels, sheets and robes. That gets expensive with the rising cost of cotton.”

Serbin was inspired by the sensors used on toll roads that he drove on in Florida. “We tweaked the technology, went through trial and error with different types of chips and put them in the correct place,” he explains. “Now, chip life exceeds 300 wash cycles.”

So far, the chips appear to be working: a handful of linen thieves have been apprehended, and asked to return the pilfered items to the hotel. Shame, it seems, is also an effective deterrent.

[Photo credit: Flicrk user C Ray Dancer]

Proposed China hotel shaped like ping pong paddle

by Melanie Nayer on

File this under: Weird ideas that surprisingly make sense.

Only in China would a hotel designed in the shape of a ping pong paddle be been proposed as part of a sports complex. The new China hotel, located in the eastern city of Huainan, would cost approximately $46 million, the China Daily reports.

Located in $276 million sports complex, the hotel will feature three main sections:

The “handle” will be an observation deck and viewing platform. The “paddle” will include the guestrooms The “base” will include conference facilities.

The main sports complex will also include other sports-shaped buildings. An open-air stadium will be in the form of a football (no team affiliation denoted) and three other facilities inside the complex will represent soccer, basketball and volleyball. The newspaper says the timeline for completion of the sports complex is still five years away.

No word on whether or not restaurants and bars will be included in the hotel design, but we predict a great game of beer pong when the doors open.