HOTEL Verde has launched a
hotel management group to
take the green concept of its
Cape Town hotel into Africa.
Verde Hotels will focus
on the development and
management of sustainable
hotels and offer consulting on
sustainable hotel practices,
environmental impact
assessments and assistance
with retro fitting. Speaking at
the launch of Verde Hotels
at WTM Africa, Samantha
Annandale, gm of Hotel
Verde, said: “We built Africa’s
greenest hotel. Our aim is to
build every country’s greenest
hotel.”
She said, given Africa’s
energy challenges there was
a critical need for sustainable
hotels. “We realised that if you
are going to build a hotel as a
hotel chain you should only be
building green hotels. That’s
the future.” She said operators
that continued to build hotels
the way they had in the past
would be left behind. “We are
proposing that we will be the
first truly green sustainable
hotel management company
within South Africa and Africa.”
Hotel Verde had managed
to achieve savings and lower
operating costs because the
hotel was built and run in a
sustainable way, Samantha
said, and that, while building
sustainably was more
expensive, the cost savings
more than recovered this.
She said Hotel Verde had
spent an additional R20,2m
– or 10% of its overall
investment of R187m – to
ensure the hotel had been
built sustainably. She said the
utility costs per room night
of a conventional hotel were
roughly R97,28, compared
with Hotel Verde’s R29,52.
“Work that out over 365 days
a year over 10 years.”
