Greening Sri Lankan Hotels

The project facilitated support to hotels that requested the technical team for assistance in implementation of sustainable consumption practices, such as selection of energy efficient equipment and wastewater treatment plants, installation of biogas plants, waste recycling opportunities and training of staff on best practices.

November 8

Srilal Miththapala, the Project Director of the Eu funded project SWITCH-Asia Greening Sri Lanka Hotels promoted Sri Lanka’s sustainable tourism at the World Travel Market (WTM) in London. Mr. Miththapala was one of five speakers at the seminar on “Making Destinations More Sustainable”.

The Greening Sri Lanka Hotels project, implemented by the Ceylon Chamber of Commerce, started in 2009 and has since then worked with than 150 hotels in Sri Lanka to work towards energy and environmental conservation.

The project opened its own booth at WTM, where the team and three selected hotels showcase their efforts to visitors at the tourism fair. With their presence at the exhibition, the project gives publicity to the fact that Sri Lanka is progressing towards a more sustainable tourist destination.

August 2011

Good Practice Guidelines on Environmental Management produced by the SWITCH-Asia project Greening Sri Lanka Hotels are now available to students at the Sri Lankan Institute of Tourism and Hotel management. At a ceremony at the hotel school on 26 September, project director Srilal Miththapala donated various copies of the book ‘Good Practice Guidelines on Environmental Management for Sri Lankan Hoteliers’ compiled with support of the project. The project involved Dr. Sriyanie Miththapala, a Specialist in Wildlife and Range Sciences and Biodiversity Conservation in compiling the book.  

As the books are now available at the school’s library, students and tourism practitioners have access to best practices of protecting the environment and conserving water and energy, and also the management of waste in hospitality establishments. The book was launched in Colombo recently with the presence of Dr. Nalaka Godahewa, Chairman, Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority. The donation of the books followed to the preliminary awareness/promotional seminars, signing-up of hotels for the project, the conducting of training workshops and walk through audits of individual hotels.

 The project has completed one year and during this period the following activities have been carried out:

·      Development of a comprehensive database for tourist hotels in Sri Lanka which gives information to sort hotels according to regions, number of rooms etc.

·      Development of promotional material in English, Sinhala and Tamil

·       Conducting Awareness seminars in all regions except North and Greater Colombo.

·       112 hotels have been registered with the project up to date. The estimated target for the first project year is to register 120 hotels and the project almost succeeded in almost achieving the target by the end of the first project year. (Details available in project web site)

·      Development of the project web site

·      Conducting half-day training workshops on baseline and monthly data collection for registered hotels.

·      Conducting walk-through audits in 33 hotels

·      Comprehensive cleaner production audits in 5 hotels.

·      Developing and issuing a certificate to registered hotels to help them engage the customers in their greening efforts.

The Ceylon Chamber of Commerce launched the project Greening Sri Lanka Hotels. The kick-off workshop took place in Colombo on the 27 April 2010. The project aims to enhance the conservation and environment practices related to energy, water and waste in Sri Lankan hotels with an emphasis on the SME sector. The project is jointly implemented by the Ceylon Chamber respectively through CCC Solutions (Pvt) Ltd, the chamber’s project implementation arm.

At the meeting the Chairman of the Ceyon Chamber of Commerce highlighted the importance of the project in the current context of Sri Lanka’s tourism growing at a rapid pace, the war ending, the global economy steadily improving, and the Asian economy in particular improving. The Project Director at CCC Solutions explained the benefits that hotels can hope to achieve from this programme. He outlined the modalities of how the project team will work with hotels who sign up for the programme. He highlighted the role that Travel Foundation UK will play in creating awareness among tour operators abroad and leverage competitive advantage for hotels as well as for the destination in general. One of the larger tour operators in Europe, Kuoni, had already shown a healthy interest in working closely with the project.

The partners of the project are the Travel Foundation (UK), Responsible Tourism Partnership (RTP), Institute of Environment Professionals Sri Lanka (IEPSL), and the Sri Lanka Sustainable Energy Authority (SLSEA).

To green this economic development the SWITCH-Asia project Greening Sri Lanka Hotels  in collaboration with the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) organized an event for environment-friendly product and equipment providers with the hoteliers interested in energy and water conservation and waste reduction. The event on 10th May 2011 brought together, for the first time, a cross section of vendors providing environmental and energy conservation products and services, with a large number of hoteliers. Each vendor was allowed time for a short presentation followed by fellowship during which time the hoteliers were able to meet and discuss with the vendors on a one-to-one basis.