Common Area Conundrum: Evaluating Hotel Energy Costs
By 9f405e387eb227b9db4d15b2dd5f8384 ·
Common areas are a focal point in the hotel and hospitality customer’s experience: a first and last impression of every individual hotel’s unique character, service level, and value proposition.
They’re also energy hogs. Outfitted with mood lighting, water features, and optimized for total HVAC comfort despite the constant opening and closing of the front door, common areas consume massive amounts of energy dollars. And while hotel owners and operators typically know their common areas down to the square foot, many remain disconnected from just how much energy it takes to keep them running.
According to MACH Energy’s 2016 Hotel Industry Survey: Energy and Water Management Best Practices, nearly a third of hotel operators don’t know the relationship between their common area energy use and their energy costs. Some of that uncertainty may be a result of hotels not using an energy management system (EMS) to collect data on the energy use of each section of a hotel.
For progressive hotel operation and engineering teams using an EMS, 55 percent say their favorite feature is the ability to monitor energy use in real time. That’s second only to the 79 percent who said reducing energy costs was their favorite feature.
Interested in learning more about common area and asset-wide energy management for hotels? Click here to download the complete survey results and companion whitepaper.