The clean, green and serene products for your hotel bedrooms

09 June 2022 by Anne Bruce

Hotel room amenities should reflect the environmental and sustainable credentials of a hotel, with ethical tea and coffee, minimal plastic and green cleaning materials top of the list. Anne Bruce reports

From the toiletries in the bathrooms to the cleaning products, the bedding and the in-room snacks, eco-friendliness is the new holy grail in the hotel bedroom.

Research suggests that as the travel and leisure sector bounces back from the Covid pandemic, sustainability is now top of the wishlist for hoteliers when it comes to putting together their in-room experience.

In-room drinks provision is one of the first things to be inspected by hotel guests, and having a premium brand on display makes a great first impression

Environmental awareness continues to rise up guests' agendas, too. Website Booking.com surveyed 30,000 travellers from 32 countries about sustainable travel in 2022 and found that 71% want to make more effort in the next year to travel more sustainably and 38% are actively looking for information about the sustainability efforts of a property before they book.

Hotels are seeking to make eco-friendly changes too, and if a large bottle of shampoo in the bathroom – rather than a takeaway plastic mini-bottle – happens to also be a cost-effective measure, so much the better in the current economic climate.

Brewing changes

The hot drinks tray is often the first thing a hotel guest turns to on arrival, and Sarah Eastman, beverages category manager at ingredients supplier Henley Bridge, says that a growing number of guests are demanding products backed by solid sustainability and ethical credentials.

Henley Bridge's Dilmah Tea brand is owned by tea growers and supports a range of initiatives including healthcare, education, hydroelectricity and baby elephant conservation in Sri Lanka – it is the world's first genuinely ethical tea brand, she claims.

She adds: "The quality of your tea offering speaks volumes about your business as a whole. In-room drinks provision is one of the first things to be inspected by hotel guests, and having a premium brand on display makes a great first impression."

Important sustainability messages can be communicated to guests through an information card inserted in the lid of Dilmah Teas' in-room presentation boxes.

Eastman suggests providing a variety of flavours of tea to suit different times of the day to keep up the aspirational experience. As well as English Breakfast and Earl Grey, consider peppermint and camomile teas, plus a green tea and one or more fruit teas or infusions.

"We know that sustainability is top of the agenda for many consumers, with many purchasing decisions affected by how sustainable a product claims to be," comments Neville Saunderson at Border Biscuits. The brand continues to build on its sustainability efforts, having already reduced its plastic packaging by 90%. Its new-look mini packs of biscuits tap into a demand for accessible but premium products for hotel rooms, Saunderson says.

Andrew Poar is director of Lancashire-based family bakery brand Eat My Logo, which offers a range of baked sweet treats, from vegan shortbread biscuits to bitesize millionaire's slices, decorated with a printed edible logo and presented in sustainable packaging as an in-room snack.

Eat My Logo

Poar says: "We know that for hoteliers, details are what sets a site apart, so we extended our range into the hotel buyers' market to bring a new and exciting product set into what was previously a missed opportunity, to create a truly memorable reaction."

Going underground

Moving into the bathroom and supplier Molton Brown has taken an innovative approach to sustainability with its new botanical hair care collection for the hotel channel. The range includes hydrating shampoo and conditioner enriched with sustainably sourced camomile.

The herbs in the products are grown in abandoned London Underground tunnels, using hydroponic systems and LED technology. This method uses 70% less water than a traditional farm and keeps all nutrients in a closed-loop system to reduce agricultural runoff. The collection is presented in recyclable bottles made from 50% post-consumer recycled plastic.

Simon James, general manager EMEA, Molton Brown, says: "We are delighted to offer our hotel partners and their guests another opportunity to weave a natural and sustainable approach into a premium and relaxing hotel experience."

In addition, the Botanical Hair Care Collection is vegan, free from parabens and phthalates, and is silicone free.

New bath and body brand land&water has also prioritised sustainability. All its products are made in the British Isles using vegan and ethical ingredients and come in glass jars and 100% post-consumer recycled plastic bottles.

Land&water's five-litre refills are available to both trade and consumer customers as part of the brand's focus on minimising packaging waste. For hotels the range includes welcome gifts such as pulse-point oils that can be displayed in bespoke powder-coated wall mounts.

A hotel has the potential to eliminate 20 mini-tubes with one large 500ml bottle of shampoo

Founder Pix Ashworth says that while land&water is an aspirational brand, it also understands hospitality's day-to-day practicalities, such as how guests interact with products in hotels and the ‘pain points' hospitality teams can be up against – as such, customer service and short lead times are prioritised, she says.

Cleaning and hygiene supplier Diversey offers a wall-mounted amenity system called Soft Care Sensations, a customisable and environmentally friendly system that helps reduce plastic waste.

A hotel has the potential to eliminate 20 mini-tubes with one large 500ml bottle of shampoo, comments Vanity Group founder and chief executive Paul Tsalikis. Its innovations include creating packaging out of OceanBound plastic waste – material at risk of ending up in the ocean – as well as using aluminium tubes, sugarcane and corn-derived plastics, all of which help guests find comfort in the fact they're experiencing a sustainable stay, he says.

There is also an opportunity to bring in additional revenue by setting up a ‘room to retail' programme with a supplier, he suggests, enabling the guest to take products home with them. The programme could include a discount for guests visiting a flagship fragrance store, a value-add when booking a skin or hair appointment as a guest of the hotel, or a bespoke discount code that's shared as part of post-stay communications, he suggests.

No plastic's fantastic

But it is not just personal hygiene on guests' minds when they visit a hotel. Research conducted by Diversey with Hotelschool the Hague showed almost 70% of guests consider a room's cleanliness and hygiene the most important factor when making recommendations. The same research revealed that for 29% of guests, bedroom cleanliness was the most important factor when forming opinions about a hotel. Diversey suggests that the three most important areas for the bedroom were clean linen, no evidence of previous guests and absence of bad smells or odours.

Improved sustainability was a key objective for its reformulated Room Care range. By replacing ready-to-use product with ultra-concentrate pouches, where water is added at the point of use rather than the place of manufacture, the amount of plastic can be reduced by more than 1kg per room and greenhouse gas emissions by more than 90%, it says.

And so to bed, and sustainability is already tucked up in there too, supplier Sleepeezee reports. As a carbon-neutral company it helps hospitality businesses adopt sustainable practices with a removal and recycling service forpackaging, old mattresses and divan bases.

Sustainability with the right top-notes of luxury has become the in-room essential that really matters to operators and guests. As hotelier Will Ashworth, chief executive of the Watergate Bay hotel in Cornwall, puts it: "Guests expect well-considered products reflecting how they feel about the wider world. Our in-room products are an extension of our brand, and so a great deal of consideration goes into getting them just right."