Marriott International is making it easier for guests to volunteer and support the local community while traveling for business or vacation. Beginning August 3rd, guests who book the “Spirit To Serve New Orleans” voluntourism package can partner with New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity or Second Harvest Food Bank of Greater New Orleans, through the end of the year, to help rebuild homes hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina and provide food to families impacted by the Gulf oil spill. Rates start at $99.

“August 29th marks the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the oil spill has created a new challenge; but the city of New Orleans is resilient,” said Gil Zanchi, General Manager, New Orleans Marriott. “Thanks to great partners, we can extend our company’s ‘spirit to serve’ philosophy to our guests and provide the opportunity to make a difference while they’re visiting with us because there is still more to do.”

The “Spirit to Serve New Orleans” voluntourism package is available at the nine hotels in downtown New Orleans, La. and includes: a dedicated concierge to coordinate volunteer efforts; deluxe accommodations; box lunch for two (2); transportation to and from the volunteer site; and two (2) commemorative t-shirts. The participating hotels are: New Orleans Marriott; JW Marriott New Orleans; New Orleans Marriott at the Convention Center; Renaissance New Orleans Pere Marquette Hotel; Renaissance New Orleans Arts; Courtyard New Orleans Downtown near the French Quarter; Courtyard New Orleans Convention Center; SpringHill Suites New Orleans Convention Center; and Residence Inn New Orleans Convention Center.

Marriott International plays an active role in the communities where our guests and employees live and work. It’s a philosophy that began with our founders, J. Willard and Alice S. Marriott, more than 80 years ago called “Spirit to Serve Our Communities.” Each year, Marriott employees donate more than 320,000 volunteer hours to local charities and organizations.  With nearly nine million visitors to the city of New Orleans annually – according to the New Orleans Convention Visitors’ Bureau – Marriott guests now have the opportunity to make a difference in this community.

For information on Marriott’s corporate social responsibility, visit Marriott.

Source: Marriott

Samantha Minogue

Editorial Director

The Courtyard Charleston/Summerville in South Carolina will be the first hotel built using Marriott International’s (NYSE: MAR) green hotel prototype, in partnership with the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC.)  This will dramatically accelerate the company’s goal to have 300 LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) hotels by 2015.  Marriott is the first in the hospitality industry to launch a green hotel prototype that has been pre-approved by USGBC as part of its LEED Volume program, meaning that any Marriott hotel that follows these plans will earn basic LEED certification, or possibly higher, upon USGBC final approval.

The new Courtyard hotel will open in early 2012 as a part of a joint venture between Blanchard & Calhoun Commercial of Augusta, Ga., and MeadWestvaco of Summerville, S.C. The hotel will introduce the first phase of The Parks of Berkley, a community consisting of 5,000 acres and one of the largest planned developments in the Southeastern United States.

“This new program packages all the basic requirements for LEED certification in a prototype,” said Karim Khalifa, senior vice president, architecture and construction for Marriott International. “It saves our owners valuable time and money in the planning process and allows us to provide a greener portfolio of hotels for our guests.”

Last fall, Marriott announced plans to develop a green hotel prototype for its Courtyard brand that will save roughly $100,000, six months in design time, and up to 25 percent energy and water savings for its owners.  To develop the green hotel prototype, Marriott was guided by the Courtyard Pittsburgh Settlers Ridge in Pennsylvania, which will open this fall and is registered for LEED certification.  The company partnered with the USGBC and Marriott suppliers — Kohler Company and Philips Lighting – to test fixtures that save energy and water and measure results.

Based on the results of the Courtyard brand, Marriott has plans to create similar green hotel prototypes for Residence Inn by Marriott, TownePlace Suites by Marriott, SpringHill Suites by Marriott and Fairfield Inn by Marriott.

Currently, Marriott has nearly 50 hotels across all brands that are LEED-certified or registered by the USGBC, including the following:

• The Inn & Conference Center by Marriott at the University of Maryland, the first LEED-certified hotel in North America
• The Ritz-Carlton, Charlotte in North Carolina in North Carolina, LEED Gold-certified
• Courtyard Chevy Chase in Maryland, LEED Gold-certified
• Courtyard Portland City Center in Oregon, LEED Gold-certified
• Fairfield Inn & Suites Baltimore Downtown/Inner Harbor, LEED Gold-certified
• Atlanta Marriott Gateway, applying for LEED certification upon opening
• SpringHill Suites Atlanta Airport Gateway, LEED-registered, applying for certification
• JW San Antonio Hill Country Resort & Spa, LEED-registered, applying for certification
• JW Marriott Hotel Los Angeles LA Live, LEED-registered, applying for certification
• The Ritz-Carlton, Los Angeles at LA Live, LEED-registered, applying for certification
• The Ritz-Carlton Highlands, Lake Tahoe, in Nevada applying for certification
• TownePlace Suites Baltimore BWI Airport, applying for LEED-Existing Building certification

Additionally, Marriott International, Inc. headquarters in Bethesda, Md., achieved LEED for Existing Buildings Gold certification earlier this year.

Building on more than 20 years of energy conservation experience, Marriott is committed to protecting the environment.  The company’s Spirit To Preserve® environmental strategy calls for:  Greening our $10 billion supply chain; further reducing energy and water consumption by 25 percent per available room by 2017; expanding our portfolio of green hotels and buildings, including 300 LEED® (Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design)-certified hotels, by 2015; educating and inspiring employees and guests to support the environment; and investing in innovative, large-scale conservation projects worldwide.

USGBC’s LEED rating system is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts. For more information, visit USGBC.

For more information on Marriott International’s environmental strategy and initiatives, visit Marriott.

Source: Marriott

Samantha Minogue

Editorial Director

Greener key cards

Marriott has “unlocked” the door to a greener hotel stay by purchasing 24 million key cards made of 50 percent recycled material, saving 66 tons of plastic from being dumped in the landfill.

Eco-pillows

Guests can sleep easy knowing that their pillows are “fighting” to save the planet.  Marriott will begin replacing the 100,000 synthetic pillows that it purchases with those filled with material made from recycled bottles.

Coreless toilet paper

By the end of Q1 2010, 500 hotels will offer “coreless” toilet paper, thereby eliminating 2 million cores a year, saving about 119 trees, nearly 3 million gallons of water, and 21 tons of packaging waste annually.  The new tissue is made of 20-40 percent recycled fiber.

Earth-friendly towels

Thanks to a unique manufacturing process, the one million towels Marriott purchases in North America don’t need to be pre-washed, saving six million gallons of water.

Recycled pens

The 47 million pens that Marriott purchases for its guest and meeting rooms in the U.S. and Canada are made of 75% recycled material.

Low VOC Paint

Marriott buys nearly one million gallons of paint that are low in Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC), which are safer and less polluting.

Biodegradable laundry bags

In the Middle East and Europe, more than 100 hotels purchase 43 tons of biodegradable plastic bags which disintegrate in two to five years, if not recycled and reused first.

Laundry detergent

At our hotels in Central Europe, we use a laundry detergent that cuts the amount of phosphates released into waste water by approximately 100,000 kg (220,000 lbs.).

Source: Marriott

To reduce its environmental footprint, Marriott is committed to:

• Reducing its fuel and water consumption by an additional 25 percent per available room over the next 10 years.

• Installing solar power at up to 40 hotels by 2017.

• Expanding existing “reduce, reuse, recycle” programs already in place in 90 percent of hotels to consistently include guest and meeting rooms, beginning with pilot hotels across all brands in Boston, Chicago, Denver, Los Angeles, Minneapolis and Washington, D.C.

For more than 20 years, Marriott has been actively involved in energy conservation.  Over the last decade, its hotels worldwide have replaced 450,000 light bulbs with fluorescent lighting, introduced linen reuse programs, and installed 400,000 low-flow showerheads and toilets. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has awarded Marriott with its 2009 Sustained Excellence award and placed the ENERGY STAR® label on more than 275 of its hotels (the most of any hotel company).

Source: Marriott