Qmania Blog

Hotel families including Omni, Starwood and Hyatt are removing yellow pages from the drawers of their rooms for good. In an effort to stay green and save green, hotels around the country are moving from away from tradition and toward Internet based services. Via USA Today:

Omni Hotels, citing environmental concerns, announced Wednesday that it will eliminate phone books in its 45 hotels. The current stock of 30,000 phone books will be recycled. [...]

Along with the Bible, phone books have been staples at hotels for years. But citing environmental and cost concerns, the industry has been more aggressive about eliminating certain items and services that may not be needed daily, if at all.

Prepare for a likely move to provide more reliable, possibly cheaper high-speed Internet access at these chains. At present, access is a relatively pricey commodity, though BusinessWeek reports that “respondents ranked high-speed Internet access as the second most important attribute they consider in making a hotel selection decision.” Coupled with Gartner Group noting that “there are 36 million business travelers in the U.S., 75% of whom carry laptops,” it seems the green paradigm shift from paper to digital is beginning to gain serious momentum.