Green Hotels

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“It gives a feel-good feeling of how you’re helping,” Carlos Amado, general manager of the Gaia in American Canyon, says of the kiosk.

A sign over the reception desk reads: “Our mission is to change the world one traveler at a time.” In each room, visitors find a Bible, a copy of “Buddha’s Teaching” and Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth.”

Hotel guest Kevin Doncaster, of Atlanta, says he sought out the Gaia because of its environmental practices when he visited American Canyon in July. He hopes others will, too. “It’s something that’s important to me,” Doncaster says of environmental practices. A communications consultant who recently returned from a 15-month stint in Iraq setting up communications systems for U.S. troops, Doncaster says saving energy is of critical importance to our future. “Seeing what we waste as a nation is a little appalling to me,”  he says.

Doncaster is not alone. Hoteliers report that, increasingly, guests are seeking out hotels based on their greenness. So for hoteliers, there’s green in going green.

And what about those who say they are green but are really more lime yellow? Chang takes a Buddhist approach. “At least they have the intention,” he says.

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