Topic 2 Hospitality implementations

Effective customer communications enabled a 4* all-inclusive hotel with 180 rooms go from providing approximately 30,000 individual miniature toiletries per summer season to 0.

By informing guests that shampoo, conditioner and shower gel was available free of charge at reception when they need it, the hotel met requirements for provision of the service without actually leaving miniature toiletries in the room. At the end of the season, not one guest had approached the reception to ask for these products, saving approximately 6,000€ by not having to replace them. Guests travelling on holiday usually bring their own preferred brands with them to last throughout their stay and don’t often require anything other than soap for handwashing.

Source: https://www.hotel-complimentary-products.co.uk/hotel-toiletries

Good to know:

On average, hotels generate approximately 1kg of unsorted waste per guest per night,

equating to 66 tonnes per hotel per year.

Waste disposal costs are likely to increase steadily in the future,

due to diminishing landfill space and increasing collection and disposal costs

Iberostar became the first hotel chain to be free from single-use plastics. This, along with a drop in plastics through the altered purchase and disposal of plastics from common areas, has removed more than 500 metric tons of waste in Spain per year.

All of this is a result of substituting plastics such as bottles, appliances, pens, laundry bags, minibar snacks and bottles, slipper bags and wristbands for glass bottles, water fountains, dispensers made of 100% recycled plastic and multi-use recyclables (2,700 kg/year), plant-based bags for rooms, exterior rubbish bins for the kitchens and other areas (134,619 kg/year), pens (3,240 kg/year), laundry bags (3,000 kg/year), ecological packaging for minibar products (900 kg/year), plant-based bags for shoes (420 kg/year) and environmentally-friendly wristbands (1,226 kg/year).

At the Iberostar headquarters in Palma, Spain, Iberostar eliminated all single-use plastics in the refurbishment, replacing plastic water bottles with reusable stainless-steel bottles. This prevented more than 45,000 bottles annually from generating 1,350Kg  of plastic waste.


In order to solidify Iberostar in the responsible tourism sector, Iberostar works in line with the “European Strategy for Plastics in a Circular Economy”, which it uses as a framework for promoting recycling and in this way contributing to an improvement in the quality and the future cost of recycled products. In fact, in line with this action, the company has implemented a composting plant pilot program to create fertilizer for the gardens at one of its Spanish hotels.