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On my recent trip to Greece I realized how well-trained I am to recycle stuff – soda cans, paper, plastic, stray bits of metal – when I couldn’t find any containers for these basic recyclables. Here and there at tourist sites I’d find a spot to dump a can.  And at Athens International Airport the round waste receptacles are divided into thirds, with spots for paper, cans, and everything else. In general, though, I didn’t see much evidence that recycling is important.
However, all of the four hotels Mr. Best in Show and I stayed in had an energy-saving feature neither of us had encountered: a key card switch. Just inside the room door, there’s a small receptacle with a key-card slot. When the hotel guest inserts a key card, the power comes on. Before we knew about this marvelous invention, we thought our hotel in Athens had given us a dud room. A side benefit is that you always know the whereabouts of at least one key card.
After we got home I learned that these power-saving systems are common in European hotels. Since we stayed in apartments for our two previous European vacations, we didn’t know about them. And no US hotel or motel either of us had graced with our presence offered such a system. Why not?
Several sources I consulted estimate that energy costs soak up between four and six percent of a hotel’s total expenditures. Maybe US hoteliers don’t think the savings are worth the expense? Maybe guest comfort – and the sense that the guest controls her own environment -- are more important than saving money? Or are better systems in the offing?
The answer is a combination of these, and other, reasons. Nine years ago, Brian McGuinness, who at the time was a VP of Starwood Hotels and Resorts, explained that for hotel guests “part of being on the road means the ability to live a little more luxuriously than at home, and that means not having to turn off the lights and the TV.” Even upscale hotel brands like Starwood’s Element don’t have keycard switch systems.
Hotel owners also point out that key card switches are on the way out. Last year a retired Marriott executive said that more secure systems controlled by a guest’s cell phone will supplant key cards. Hotel rooms will also get smarter, relying on sensors that know when a room is occupied and thus in need of HVAC and live outlets for charging assorted devices.
Some US hotels, generally independently-run properties in older buildings, have found key card switch systems to be a good choice. Leviton, a Long Island-based manufacturer of key card systems, reports that system sales have increased 25 to 30 percent between 2014 and 2016. California’s tough energy standards are driving a big chunk of the increase, but other hoteliers are also fans. Guests by and large embrace the systems.
Unlike those we used in Greece, some systems allow guests to designate which circuits the cards control – so you can let your smartphone, e-reader, and laptop charge while you’re out of the room. Yeah, we finally realized that we had to have power to charge our stuff and we didn’t have power when we were out. We coped.
Image credit: Hotel key card holder. The holder contains a simple switch that will turn on the lights in the room. Photographed in Sokos Hotel Vaakuna in Mikkeli Finland. Public domain
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