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Site selection
The site selection criteria for a tourist class hotel should be done in a qualitative and quantitative manner. Site selection should be done by a team of experts who have adequate knowledge regarding the hotel environment. The selecting team should have a laid down selection consideration guided by an inspection checklist. The cost of the site should not be too high to make the investment non- feasible. Where the cost of the site is too expensive, the overall cost of putting up the hotel may not be realistic. The site for the construction should be in an accessible location. The site should be easy to reach, from all sides. The place should be close to or proximity to a major airport to facilitate easy movement of visitors. The airport should be able to handle a large number of flights with sufficient airport assistance. Closeness to major destinations and easy movement to and from the hotel facilitate quick access by disabled people. The place should be served by a good road network with adequate and efficient limousine and taxi services. The site should be in a place well served by shuttle services and with adequate parking space for visitors as well as for the staff. The building site should be in a place with an attractive local site which will act as tourist attraction sites. Such places include closeness to game reserves and game parks, sanctuaries, lakes and ocean beaches, and any other attractive sites. Most third-world countries are characterized by massive insecurity, especially the African continent. The site selected should be in an area with good security and a hospitable environment. The visitors need to feel secure and be able to enjoy the place to their maximum (Baker, 2000 pp. 15-18).
Environmental design elements
An international hotel should be designed in such a way that the concepts of green building techniques are fully considered. In most cases, the designer commissioning the building design is not the same person who operates the building and meets the costs of operation and maintenance. A good environmental design will guide the designer from stating large environmental capital costs in putting up the structures because those in charge of the building do not consider the long-term costs associated with the running of the building structures. With the use of green building techniques, the designer can control and lower all the costs associated with the building process. Such costs include site clearing, energy costs, and landfill dumping costs, water costs, and overall material costs as well as reducing the workers health problems that may be as a result of polluted air indoors. The designers should in the initial stages of designing incorporate the environmental design features so that the hotel can easily pay for itself through operational savings as well as generate high returns on the investment. The design team should work together and coordinate the design in order to enjoy the maximum benefits of environmental technologies and tactics while still maximizing the cooperation between them (Hassanien & Losekoot 2002, p. 231). The design team should develop a complete design strategy. This involves designing a complete lifecycle analysis for the hotel. The designing team should develop a design approach that is aimed at assisting them in the optimization of the ideas developed. The design team will have to consider the climatic conditions of the area so that they can decide on the best building form that will fit in that climatic zone. A good building form of the hotel will make the best use of the thermal efficiency of the hotel. Proper consideration of environmental elements in the initial stages of building design significantly lowers the operating and renovation costs. The environmental design diversity aspect during the design stage should be in line with the recommended environmental design principle; address environmental solutions, incorporate systems, and check costs (Pine & Gilmore 1998, pp. 97-105).
Alternative materials
Materials required for the construction and maintenance of the hotel should be enumerated during the environmental design development stage. Alternative materials are required temporarily during the building construction and hence form an integral part of the hotel-designed landscape. The materials selected for use should be considered with respect to the suitability of the project. The selected materials should be recyclable, should have sufficient embodied energy, should not contain hazardous constituents, and possess long life cycle analysis. When selecting material for construction, the design team must consider a variety of issues in relation to the environmental goals of the project to be established. The materials should be used economically without wastage, they should be reusable where practical and recycled to reduce wastage and cut costs. New materials should be used considerately, avoiding wastage and ensuring that the construction process consumes the minimum possible materials without compromising the quality of the work. This is best achieved through conducting an environmental impact of the materials and analyzing the costs of all the materials required on the principles of the life- cycle analysis. Materials and components should be salvaged and reclaimed where possible. Salvaged and recycled materials should be used where available so as to reduce the overall costs and embodied energy. Recycling of materials reduces the environmental impacts associated with acquiring new materials. The use of materials with hazardous environmental impact should be substituted with environmentally friendly materials. Their use should be minimized or eliminated. Materials such as treated lumber should be replaced by materials that can equally resist deterioration. Wood preservatives and varnish chosen and used should be the least toxic or non-toxic at all. Generally, materials that originate locally or products that are made from locally assembled materials constitute less environmental impact. The materials required for construction should be assembled locally if possible. This activity supports the local people and improves their living conditions hence sustaining the locality (Beals 2009, pp. 361-382).
Water conservation
Water is a basic need. Without water there would be no life. Clean water as a natural resource is becoming increasingly scarce. Rapid environmental degradation is posing a great risk to the supply of this precious commodity. Many regions of the world that previously enjoyed plenty of clean water are now experiencing shortages. There is an acute shortage of clean water in third world countries. It is therefore critical for the hotel designers to lay great emphasis on the availability of water in their design. The site of the hotel should be in a place which is at close proximity to clean water source. The hotel should have in place systems that are designed to significantly reduce water usage, provide efficiency in usage and remove any form of water pollution. Water consumption rate in the hotel should be greatly reduced. This can be done through developing water efficient models, installation of up to date water fixtures, treating and recycling existing water, minimizing the amount of water used to water flower by adopting irrigation methods that uses minimum possible water amounts. Plants should not be watered using treated waters as this unnecessarily increase water costs. The management should institute an overall change in behavior towards water consumption in general. Due to the scarcity of clean water in the third world countries, provision of water is a costly affair. The management of the hotel should provide means necessary to cut on costs associated with water provision. Probable measures include installation of water meters to accurately know the amount spent on water, reducing the energy required in pumping water and less use of hot water by hotel operators. The hotel management should ensure that water pollution is kept at minimal amounts. There should be proper affluent treatment and disposal systems. Pollutants should not be directed into water drainage systems (Rutes, Penner & Adams 2001, pp. 256-261).
Energy efficiency
Energy is a major requirement for effective running of a hotel. About twenty- five percent of the total establishment and running costs are energy dependent. In all international class hotels, more than fifty percent of energy requirements are used in lighting, heating and cooling. In the process of producing the required energy, pollutants are emitted into the environment. The designers should establish the quantity and type of energy required to operate and run the hotel and its impact on the environment. Provision of energy requires heavy initial costs in terms machines, equipments and installation. The project designers should evaluate all possible sources of energy and adopt that which is effective, efficient, non pollutant and less costly to install and maintain. Changing to a new energy source requires heavy investment costs. It is imperative that the designers of the hotel must first consider all available options that provides the optimal energy conservation standards that ensures direct savings as well as reducing the probability of future capital investment in an alternative source of energy. A proper hotel building should be fitted with climate sensitive devices which are capable of saving more than fifty percent of lighting costs and about sixty percent of cooling and heating costs as compared to ordinary buildings. In third world countries most of the countries depend on fossil fuels as the major source of fuel. Fossil fuels contribute the largest proportion of air pollution in the world compared with other sources. The hotel should provide use of green energy in its environmental design. Green energy sources such as wind power, hydro-electric power and solar energy are non-pollutant. Use of these sources of energy reduces air pollution and hence lowers the rate of global warming due to lowering the use of fossil fuels (Frapin-Beauge, Virgins & Wood 2008, pp. 383-389).
Indoor environmental quality
The hotel building should be constructed in a way that it provides a favorable environment to the visitors as well as the employees in the hotel. It should be constructed in a manner that increases the performance of the occupants and increasing their quality of life. The interior environment of the hotel constitutes the buildings where workers perform their duties, live and accommodate visitors. The hotel should be build with consideration of the quality of life the intended occupants are expected to achieve. Despite the fact that the hotel should minimize the energy costs of heating, the buildings should not be completely air tight. The level of ventilation standards should be high. Good ventilation standards ensure that any air pollution that occurs in the indoor environment has very little if any impact on the occupants. Poor ventilation causes harmful indoor air quality resulting to sick building syndrome. Poor ventilation makes building materials produce organic compounds that can negatively affect the health of the occupants resulting to building related illnesses (Ransley & Ingram 2001, pp. 79-86).
A good indoor environment results to increased worker productivity to between six and sixteen percent. A poor indoor environment lowers the morale of the workers. This in turn results to poor service delivery, loss of customers and high rate of turn over. The hotels indoor environment should have well designed ventilation systems, good air quality and good quality well maintained and effective lighting mechanism. The hotel interior design should be well designed and decorated with state of art perfections using locally available low cost well blend materials. The working conditions of the employees should be kept optimal so as to enable them maintain the highest level of cleanliness and hygiene necessary to attract visitors (Birchfield & Sparrowe 2003, pp. 213-219).
Operation over the buildings lifetime
The operations of a hotel have a great impact on the environment. Over the life time the hotel has to operate, the environmental values keeps on changing and thus the hotel has to keep on improving its practices to keep in line with the ever changing environment. The process of change leads to increased performance of the hotel. The hotel designers should in principle incorporate the generally accepted environmental management systems as stipulated in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO14000). The set standard levels are aimed at reducing environmental degradation that arises from the activities of an organization. The standards guide the business on measures that it can adopt to minimize pollution and ensure good disposal of its wastes. The management team should be well trained to uphold the required standards to run such a hotel. They should promote efficient and effective means of managing the environment. Good environment management practices will enhance the image of the business. By upholding these standards, the hotel will be able to apply cost effective and flexible systems that promotes best organizational practices that will enable it collect and practice environmental friendly practices. The hotel should have a well laid out design that will facilitate effective collection and disposal of wastes. It should have within the building, a well build recycling unit for wastes that can be recycled. The hotel should have a composite pit where bio degradable wastes are accumulated to decay. This provides a natural way of recycling waste materials. During the establishment of the hotel, the life-cycle costs and the expected benefits over its long life need to be considered. The renovation and maintenance costs should be well addressed to ensure that such moves results to increased performance of the hotel and hence increased profitability. Retrofits should be done to systems and appliances that guarantee immediate profitability and environmental preservation. The hotel should have an effective and efficient way of maintaining the building and its operations. The equipments should be well maintained to improve their reliability. The management should eliminate problems that came up through discarding of unproductive practices (Fellows 1998, pp. 215-221).
Reference
Baker, K., 2000, Project Evaluation and Feasibility Analysis. New York: Hospitality Press.
Beals, P., 2009, Hotel Real Estate Finance and Investments. SAGE Handbook of Hospitality Management. London: Sage.
Birchfield, C. & Sparrowe, T., 2003, Design and Layout of Foodservice Facilities. (2nd Ed.). New Jersey: Wiley.
Fellows, J., 1998, Buildings for Hospitality: Principles of Care and Design for Accommodation Managers. Essex: Longman.
Frapin-Beauge, A, Verginis, C, & Wood, R., 2008, Accommodation and Facilities Management. SAGE Handbook of Hospitality Management. London: Sage.
Hassanien, A , & Losekoot, E.(2002). The Application of Facilities Management Expertise to the Hotel Renovation Process. Facilities, Vol. 20, No. 7/8, pp. 230-238.
Pine, J, & Gilmore, H. (1998). Welcome to the experience economy. Harvard Business Review, Vol. 4, pp. 97-105.
Ransley, J. & Ingram, H. (2001). What is Good Hotel Design? Facilities, Vol. 19, No 1/2, pp.79-86
Rutes, A, Penner, H. & Adams, L., 2001, Public Space Design in Hotel Design: Planning and Development. New York: Norton & Co.
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