HOTELS FITTING OUT ROOMS IN `GREEN'

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, April 4, 1993                   TAG: 9304020158
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY JEFF ROWE KNIGHT-RIDDER/TRIBUNE
DATELINE: SANTA ANA, CALIF.                                LENGTH: Medium
HOTELS FITTING OUT ROOMS IN `GREEN'
Singer Michael Jackson says he doesn't have a sterile sleeping chamber at home. But if the need for pristine air and water does arise, he can check into any of a growing number of "green" hotels.
Fitted with special water- and air-filtration systems, green rooms, as they are called in the industry, are a hot trend in the hotel business. In addition to offering clean air and water, such rooms also can offer the latest in environmental and health-conscious products - non-alkaline soaps, writing paper made from recycled paper and perhaps towels made from cotton that has never encountered pesticides.
Green hotel rooms mirror two trends of the 1990s - heightened concern for the environment and increasing awareness of health and fitness. In addition to refitting rooms to cater to the environment- and health-conscious, hotels are turning off lights and recycling everything but guest bills.
The Sheraton Grand at the Dallas-Fort Worth airport has four green rooms and plans to refit more rooms with the filtration systems, spending about $500 on each room. It doesn't charge more for the green rooms, but some hotels add $10 or so to the rate.
Do green rooms smell or feel different?
In a non-green room, the discerning nose might detect a tinge of smoke, mold or mildew. Not in the green rooms.
"It has a cool scent," said Cara Hensley, the hotel's office manager.
That's the kind of description that makes John Baker smile.
Baker is Southern California sales coordinator for Network International Systems, a seller of air- and water-filtration systems for hotel rooms. Filters on the water systems remove chlorine and other purifying chemicals, while the air-filtration systems remove dust, pollen and microscopic organisms, Baker says, leaving the air "equal to that in a hospital's burn ward."
Among other benefits, people get better sleep in such an environment, he says.
National Safety Associates of Memphis, Tenn., maker of the filtration systems, says sales of the devices rose from $74 million in 1988 to $284 million in 1991. Many of the systems went into houses, but as those users travel, they tend to want a hotel room without chlorine in the water and dust in the air, just like at home.
"People are more health-conscious then ever before," said Clay Jackson, a company spokesman.
But, like tofu, compost toilets and "Save the rhinos" T-shirts, green rooms aren't for everyone.
In the hotel business, "it comes down to service," said Rick Schwartz, an Irvine, Calif.-based hotel expert.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB