In a session on ‘Housekeeping Forum’ the topic for the discussion was ‘Go Local, Go Green: Switching Over to Made in India, Eco- Friendly Room Essentials’. The session moderated by Bikramjit Ray, Executive Editor, BW Hotelier had some of the esteem panelists on dice namely Sareena Kochar Vice President (Housekeeping), Lemon Tree Hotels; Harinder Kishore Director (Housekeeping), Andaz Delhi; Vanita Arora Director (Housekeeping) The Park New Delhi; Juna Banerji Executive Housekeeper, ITC Maurya, New Delhi and Reetha Thomas Executive Housekeeper, Radisson Blu MBD Noida.

BW HOTELIER organised its third Smart Hotels Conclave and Expo 2017 on 26th September, 2017 at The Park, New Delhi. The conclave this year focused on helping the hotels and their operations become more streamlined.

In a session on ‘Housekeeping Forum’ the topic for the discussion was ‘Go Local, Go Green: Switching Over to Made in India, Eco- Friendly Room Essentials’. The session moderated by Bikramjit Ray, Executive Editor, BW Hotelier had some of the esteem panelists on dice namely Sareena Kochar Vice President (Housekeeping), Lemon Tree Hotels; Harinder Kishore Director (Housekeeping), Andaz Delhi; Vanita Arora Director (Housekeeping) The Park New Delhi; Juna Banerji Executive Housekeeper, ITC Maurya, New Delhi and Reetha Thomas Executive Housekeeper, Radisson Blu MBD Noida.

Kochar began the discussion by saying that Lemon Tree Hotels plan the rooms by sourcing the materials from local regions. “The hotel should have an ambiance and feel of a local culture as well as for local interiors. It not only reduces the cost but gives the opportunity to local people to showcase their skills,” she said.

“Secondly when we built the hotel we take care of the local textures, local materials and when it comes to decorating the rooms we go for the art work which is locally procured of that region. People also like lot of handicrafts like Bastar art in lemon tree hotels. It is a CSR activity which gives employment to people in Madhya Pradesh,” she added.

Taking the discussion forward Kishore, spoke about eco-friendly initiatives at Andaz, Delhi. “Particularly the rooms are designed with big windows which means the use of lights will be less. We don’t have any stationary in the room, if the guest needs any information about the hotel everything is on the television reducing the use of paper,” she said

Kishore added that the Andaz is based on 401 reasons to fall in love with Delhi. “If we talk about the Made in India initiative, Andaz has a book depicting 401 reasons to fall in love with Delhi, in each room. We don’t prefer to pick up anything from international brands our tea, coffee and everything else is from Indian brands. More or less we are surrounded by Delhi and India,” she said.

Sharing about how The Park New Delhi sources the local materials, Arora said, “when it comes to the local produces, our fire kitchen is promoting lot of local and organic made in India things. The fire menu is 60 percent of the local and organic. Every Sunday we have our farmers market where we promote the local vendors, we are also planning to install heat pumps which will have the boiler less laundry, helping us to save the electricity.”