Among operating costs for hotels, one of the highest is utilities, with lighting and HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) being the two biggest draws.
To reduce operating costs, hotels often install energy-efficient lighting and ENERGY STARHVAC equipment in the room. However, energy usage is heavily dependent on guest practices. Will they turn off unnecessary lights and will they lower HVAC settings during their stay.
Even if hotels install energy-efficient lighting and HVAC equipment in rooms, there is no guarantee that there will be less energy consumption, unless hotels can influence customers to conserve.
A study I conducted, with Howook Sean Chang, DBA, of Florida International University and Myong Jae (MJ) Lee, Ph.D., California State Polytechnic University Pomona, entitled "Exploring Resource Efficiency Benchmarks for Environmental Sustainability in Hotels," published by Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, suggests that sustainable resource management should be a joint effort between management and guests. However, several market studies have shown that many guests do not practice energy conservation behavior away from home because, unlike at home, they do not pay the bill directly.
Utility Company's Energy Conservation: The Nudge
As we all know, utility companies in the U.S. influence households to conserve energy by providing a monthly bill that shows past energy consumption, a comparison to their neighbors, and tips on energy conservation. Known as the Home Energy Report (HER), developed by Opower, a publicly held software company that partners with six of the nation's ten largest utility companies have achieved higher levels of household energy conservation. It is estimated that the average customer receiving the HER, cut energy usage by more than 2.5% percent.
Hunt Allcott, in his report, Resource and Energy Economics, evaluated the effect of the HER using data from randomized natural field experiments at 600,000 treatment and control households across the U.S. The study found an average of 2% reduction in energy consumption. Another report in the Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, confirmed a 1.2% and a 2.1% reduction in energy consumption from two natural field experiments that investigated the effectiveness of energy conservation on households receiving the HER. They asserted that the HER was a cost-effective "nudge-changing" consumer behavior.
Our hotel study replicated the success of the household energy conservation nudge with hotel guests to achieve guest-driven electricity efficiency in hotels. Since the energy conservation nudge in the form of the HER works well with households, it was found that there are methods to encourage hotel guests to conserve energy in hotel rooms using similar tactics.
The hotel industry estimates an average of 3 to 70 kWh (kilowatt-hour) per occupied room for a 24-hour period, depending on the scale of the hotel, building features, and operational characteristics (Chan, 2009; Placet et al., 2010; Udawatta et al., 2010). Two studies were conducted regarding hotel energy consumption.
Placet et al. (2010) conducted a field experiment to reveal energy end-use consumption patterns, variability of guest room energy use, and monthly variations at a full-service hotel with more than 300 guest rooms. They installed electricity meters in thirty- two rooms to measure the energy consumption over four months of plug loads and portable lighting fixtures, including the desk lamp with convenience outlet, floor lamp, table lamps, refrigerator, and television.
In addition, Onset computer light intensity data loggers were installed in the bathroom lights and wall sconces to determine the on-hours of these hard-wired fixtures. They found that the lighting loads in a large hotel accounted for a fairly modest percentage of electricity consumption (about 7 percent in the winter and a somewhat higher percentage in the summer) out of average electricity consumption of 13,285 kWh per day.
Page and Siminovitch (1999) conducted a study to monitor lighting in hotel guest rooms to better understand lighting usage and energy consumption patterns. They looked at the five typical lighting fixtures of a hotel guest room: entryway light; bathroom light; two bed-end table lamps; table lamp on desk; and floor lamp. They installed lighting loggers on all light fixtures in ten guest rooms in a hotel to measure how much energy was used over three months and which fixtures were used the most. The baseline measurement used incandescent bulbs in light fixtures in three of the ten rooms. Compact fluorescent lamps (CFL) were used in the fixtures of the remaining seven rooms.
Although the researchers neglected to report the average kWh consumed in the tested rooms, the results of the field experiment revealed that bathroom lights were used for nearly eight hours a day per occupied room. Lamps on the bed end tables were on for an average of almost five hours per day. Floor lamps were used on average for three hours per day per occupied room while the desk table lamp was used about two hours a day. Lights were used most in the morning from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. and in the evenings (after 5:00 p.m.). They also noted that some fixtures, most notably the bathroom and bed fixtures, showed high usage during typically unoccupied daytime periods between 11:00 a.m. and 5:00 p.m.
A scenario script was developed in which survey participants would imagine themselves to be hotel guests. Then, the script was manipulated for the experiment measuring changes in behavioral intention on electricity conservation. The script illustrated a guest room that became dark in the afternoon due to bad weather on the second day of a trip. This condition was created to highlight that a certain rate of electricity has been consumed in the room.
To manipulate an electricity-saving opportunity in the script, a hypothetical situation in which a guest (a survey respondent) might perceive an opportunity to save electricity by turning off unnecessary lights in the room was implemented. The scenario introduction reads as follows: It is the second day of your stay in a hotel at which you have stayed before. During the day, the weather turns bad, and the room becomes dark. You turn on all the lights in the room- two bedside lights and desk, floor, wall, ceiling, and bathroom lights. As you watch television, you feel hungry and remember a restaurant that your friend highly recommended. It would take two hours to go to this restaurant and return to the hotel. You think that spending two hours is worth the trip based on the recommendation. As you leave the room, you notice that all of the lights are still on in the room.
This introduction was identical across all experimental groups including the control group (no energy conservation nudge group). Following this introduction, an energy conservation nudge was implemented in the scenarios using a set of three electricity consumption rates with either a general or a peer comparison. This study adopted kWh to measure electricity consumption, where 1 kWh represents a 100-watt bulb burning for 10 hours.
We assumed that an appropriate level for electricity consumption is from 5 to 10 kWh for the situation described in the scenario. The script highlighted a real time electricity monitor that displays the electricity consumption of the room.
In reality, a few real time electricity monitors (power usage tracking systems) are available for home, commercial buildings, and even for hotels in the U.S. market. The devices, usually connected to the main conductor inside of the breaker panel, calculate the exact amount of electricity being used and display it in real-time on a liquid-crystal display (LCD) screen. We also assumed that a guest would either use less or more electricity than an average of other hotel guests or of gold frequent guests. Then, two valences (negative and positive electricity consumption) were matched with two comparison subjects (guests and guests with gold membership).
Thus, a set of four scenarios reflecting the two valences and the two comparison groups were built following the communal introduction.
The scenarios read: As you are leaving the room, you remember that there is a real-time energy consumption meter in the room that the hotel staff talked about when you checked in. You find the indicator on the wall right by the room door. It reads, "your current energy consumption: 7 kWh (or 10 kWh)."
The next line reads, "average energy consumption by other hotel guests: 10 kWh (or 7 kWh)," which indicates your energy consumption is lower (or higher) than other guests in the hotel. To represent a specific reference group, scenarios described the benefits of gold frequent guest membership to assimilate belongingness.
The scenario reads as follows: You are proud of the gold membership status that you hold as a preferred guest. The privileged membership offers access to the executive floor lounge and a free room upgrade. Not many guests can reach the status. As you are leaving the room, you remember that there is a real-time energy consumption meter in the room that the hotel staff talked about when you checked in. You find the indicator on the wall right by the room door. It reads, "your current energy consumption is 7 kWh (or 5 kWh)." The next line reads, "average energy consumption by other gold members in the hotel is 5 kWh (or 7 kwh)," which indicates your energy consumption is higher (or lower) than that of other gold members in the hotel.
The energy conservation nudge (providing real time energy consumption rate with normative feedback) stimulated behavioral intention to conserve. The results provided empirical evidence of the effectiveness of an energy conservation nudge similar to that of HER. The results showed that no energy conservation nudge group indicated the lowest intention to conserve electricity. Participants exposed to an energy conservation nudge were more likely to have behavioral intentions to conserve electricity than no energy conservation nudge group.
The results of this study also provide compelling evidence that hotels offering guests information about their personal electricity consumption rate along with a comparison to other guests can influence guests to conserve electricity in the hotel rooms. With the energy conservation nudges, hotels tend to achieve notable, electricity savings. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), reducing energy costs by 10 percent through a strategic approach to energy efficiency is equivalent to a $0.62 Average Daily Rate (ADR) increase for limited-service hotels and a $1.35 ADR increase for full-service hotels (Energy Star Report, 2015).
Although hotels have installed energy-efficient light fixtures and ENERGY STAR equipment to reduce costs and to become more sustainable, hotels also need to optimize energy efficiency by encouraging guests to be more aware of conservation. This study provides empirical evidence that a real-time energy consumption meter with normative feedback tends to replicate energy conservation obtained by utility companies through the HER. Hotel management should consider implementing the device to achieve maximum electrical efficiency which is driven by its guests. The following are some possible practices in the hotel industry.
Extended stay hotels in the planning stages should consider adopting a real-time energy consumption meter in guest rooms because their suite-type room with full kitchens carries more energy costs than that of a transient hotel. Such energy conservation techniques offer guests a unique experience in learning their real-time energy use.
Moreover, hotel operators should consider using the science of choice to nudge hotel guests toward energy conservation and sustainability. For example, with a wastewater drain that displays the amount of water that has passed through it, hotel operators can provide guests with information on the number of gallons of water used with a comparison to other guests instead of installing water-efficient showerheads that hotel guests might find unsatisfactory. This water conservation nudge would also offer guests an opportunity to learn how much water they use and make a choice toward water conservation. In essence, the water conservation nudge would help educate guests about their subconscious behavior when using water. In the end, hotels can be a place where guests learn how to conserve and do the same thing at home.
Lastly, the pro-conservation nudges can be integrated into a hotel's reward program to recognize green guests. Currently, some hotels offer a financial reward for declined maid service, but few reward guests for towel reuse or any other environmental campaigns in which guests participate. When the nudges are implemented, hotels can award their frequent guests a status from greenest, greener, green, and light green based on guests' actual energy usage per stay; in this way, hotels can continuously promote energy conservation behavior.
Ultimately, once the system is developed, hotel brands could provide guests with descriptive energy usage information on each of their stays within the same brand hotels.?
References Allcott, H. (2011). Rethinking real-time electricity pricing. Resource and Energy Economics, 33(4), 820-842. Ayres, I., et al. (2013). Evidence from Two Large Field Experiments that Peer Comparison Feedback Can Reduce Residential Energy Usage. Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, 29(5), 992-1022. Borcover, A. (2007). Hotels hop on the green bandwagon. the Los Angelest Times. Retrieved 03/15/2022 Chan, W. (2009). Environmental measures for hotels' environmental management systems: ISO 14001. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 21(5), 542-560. Energy Star Report. (2015). Data Trends: Energy Use in Hotels. Retrieved 03/17/2022. Page, E., & Siminovitch, M. (1999). Lighting Energy Savings Opportunities in Hotel Guestrooms: Results from a Scoping Study at the Redondo Beach Crown Plaza 2000 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings, Pacific Grove, CA. Placet, M., et al. (2010). Energy End-Use Patterns in Full-Service Hotels: A Case Study ACEEE SUMMER STUDY ON ENERGY EFFICIENCY IN BUILDINGS Washington, DC. Udawatta, L., et al. (2010). Analysis of sensory information for efficient operation of energy management systems in commercial hotels. Electronic Journal of Structural Engineering, 113-120. Zhang, J. J., et al. (2012). Exploring Resource Efficiency Benchmarks for Environmental Sustainability in Hotels. Cornell Hospitality Quarterly, 53(3), 229-241.
Reprinted from the Hotel Business Review with permission from www.HotelExecutive.com