Intercontinental Hotels Group will be putting its eco-step forward, with plans to remove the miniature amenities bottles from bathrooms – with group removing them from its estate by 2021.
The current plastic bottle set-up in a US Crowne Plaza hotel – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
This covers all hotels rooms in IHG’s hotel estate- almost 843,000 guest rooms. The hotels switch to bulk-size bathroom amenities instead.
IHG are trumpeting this as the first global hotel company to commit all brands to remove bathroom miniatures in favour of bulk-size amenities. Currently, the chai currently has an average of 200 million bathroom miniatures in use across its entire hotel estate every year.
The removal of this should see a significant removal of plastic waste – with the chain working to remove plastic straws as well.
IHG has already switched to bulk-only products with Six Senses Hotels, voco, EVEN, and avid using the bulk types since lanch. Meanwhile, Kimpton Hotels, as well as Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites (Americas). Over 1000 properties in the USA have already moved.
In quotes
Keith Barr, CEO, IHG, commented:
“It’s more important than ever that companies challenge themselves to operate responsibly – we know it’s what our guests, owners, colleagues, investors and suppliers rightly expect. Switching to larger-size amenities across more than 5,600 hotels around the world is a big step in the right direction and will allow us to significantly reduce our waste footprint and environmental impact as we make the change.
“We’ve already made great strides in this area, with almost a third of our estate already adopting the change and we’re proud to lead our industry by making this a brand standard for every single IHG hotel. We’re passionate about sustainability and we’ll continue to explore ways to make a positive difference to the environment and our local communities.”
The end of a souvenir – but a lot less plastic.
With hotels realising the eco-agenda is becoming more important, there are easy ways to cut waste – and removing plastic miniature bottles is one of them.
Miniature amenities at an Intercontinental Hotel – Image, Economy Class and Beyond
Of course, there’s nothing to say that the cost savings of buying bulk bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body lotion and so on will be a lot cheaper than lots miniatures.
With a promise that the stay experience is not impacted in this, I’m more than willing to give IHG a chance with this as they reduce the travellers footprint.
But for those who enjoy taking the little bottles home as a souvenir… there could be a few disappointed faces…
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This is a great move, although I’d like to see them keep some bar soaps, but have them wrapped in paper instead of plastic.