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

DATE: SUNDAY, January 16, 1994                   TAG: 9401140094
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: F-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: BY TOM BELDEN KNIGHT-RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

DISNEY WORLD, HOTEL OPERATORS BECOMING MORE ENVIRONMENTALLY AWARE

When you check into the Walt Disney World Resort outside Orlando, there's something special in the room. A sign bearing Mickey Mouse's picture asks you to put your recyclable bottles, cans and polystyrene containers into a plastic bag you'll find nearby. And Mickey asks that you don't discard your newspapers either, but instead stack them for collection.

Mickey isn't alone in this effort. Disney World is one of numerous hotel operators that in the past two years or so have become environmentally aware, sorting recyclable materials out of trash and changing the types of supplies and equipment they use.

In the Embassy Suites chain, about half the hotels are using energy-saving fluorescent bulbs and toilet and facial tissue made from recycled paper. And they have installed water-saving shower heads, faucets and toilets.

Hyatt hotels separate recyclable materials found in the trash. They have put energy- and water-saving fixtures, like fluorescent lights, in rooms and are looking for ways to conserve water and power.

In some hotels in the Netherlands and Germany, countries where environmental awareness runs especially high, guests are asked to consider using their towels for more than one day to conserve water and to keep from adding detergent to the waste-water system.

Few hotels have taken their environmental-awareness efforts as far as the Dadeland Marriott in Miami and the Sheraton Grand at Dallas/Fort Worth Airport. Those two have installed air- and water-filtration systems in some rooms that create as pristine an environment as you can probably find anywhere on Earth.

The Sheraton Grand has rooms with filtration systems on one floor, while the Dadeland Marriott has a total of 38 "Green Rooms" on two floors.

Tim Weller, general manager of the Dadeland Marriott, says the creation of the special rooms, which have free-standing air-filtering units and filters on bathroom cold-water taps, grew out of a more general effort the hotel undertook to save energy and resources. A consultant suggested there might be a market for an exceedingly clean environment in the rooms.

"We see it as a kind of second-generation no-smoking room," he said. "We have seen a tremendously high demand for no-smoking rooms so that now it's 70 percent of the hotel."

The Dadeland Marriott started by creating 10 "Green Rooms," the name it chose for promotional purposes, and found that they were so popular it could charge a $10-a-night premium for them, Weller said. It converted 28 more, and that's about as much as demand warrants, he said.

"There is a market for these rooms among two types of guests," Weller said. "One is the well-educated and informed business traveler who perceives clean air and water as an added value to their stay. . . . We're near five medical facilities, so the other part of the market are people with allergies or breathing problems who really need this kind of environment when they get away from their homes."

by CNB