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Hilton Worldwide announced that it is a recipient of a 2010 Global Vision Award from Travel + Leisure. Recognizing the outstanding efforts of individuals and organizations that are working to preserve the world’s natural and man-made treasures, Travel + Leisure honored Hilton Worldwide with the award in the Corporate Greening category for the company’s new LightStay sustainability tracking system.
“We are honored to receive a Travel + Leisure 2010 Global Vision Award,” said Paul Brown, president of global brands and commercial services, Hilton Worldwide. “LightStay was developed to improve individual hotel performance while decreasing the company’s overall impact on the environment, and we are thrilled that our efforts are allowing us to continually provide our guests with the best sustainable lodging options. LightStay is an example of how Hilton Worldwide will continue to look for opportunities to address the environmental, economic, social and cultural issues that impact the world around us.”
Hilton Worldwide was selected as a Travel + Leisure 2010 Global Vision Awards winner by a group of distinguished jurors, including the following: Bonnie Burnham, president of the World Monuments Fund; Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Prize-winning economist; Tony Williams, senior vice president of resorts and projects at Emirates Hotels & Resorts; Blake Mycoskie, founder of TOMS Shoes; Jake Kheel, environmental director for Grupo Puntacana; Louie Psihoyos, Oscar-winning documentarian; and Liya Kebede, model and goodwill ambassador to the World Health Organization.
With the implementation of LightStay, Hilton Worldwide and its portfolio of hotel brands recently became the first major multi-brand company in the hospitality industry to require property-level measurement of sustainability. LightStay specifically analyzes performance across 200 operational practices, such as housekeeping, paper product usage, food waste, chemical storage, air quality and transportation. In addition to its function as a measurement system, LightStay provides a “meeting impact calculator” that calculates the environmental impact of any meeting or conference held at a property.
By December 31, 2011 all of the more than 3,600 properties within Hilton Worldwide’s global portfolio of hotel brands will implement LightStay. More than 300 hotels currently using LightStay were recently welcomed into the “green hotel” programs of two leading online travel agencies, Expedia and Travelocity.
LightStay underwent two years of rigorous internal testing before being unveiled to the public in April 2010 along with the first full year of findings from 2009. According to the testing results, 1,300 Hilton Worldwide properties using the system conserved enough energy to power 5,700 homes for a year, saved enough water to fill more than 650 Olympic-size pools and reduced carbon output equivalent to taking 34,865 cars off the road. Reductions in water and energy use also translated into dollars saved for hotel owners, with estimated savings of more than $29 million in utility costs in 2009.
Vicky is the co-founder of TravelDailyNews Media Network where she is the Editor-in Chief. She is also responsible for the daily operation and the financial policy. She holds a Bachelor's degree in Tourism Business Administration from the Technical University of Athens and a Master in Business Administration (MBA) from the University of Wales. She has many years of both academic and industrial experience within the travel industry. She has written/edited numerous articles in various tourism magazines.
