In the Press.
Monkbar Hotel "Grows for Gold"
in bid for Ultimate Green Business Accolade
Growing for Gold! Monkbar Hotel’s Events Co-ordinator, Bianca Cipriano planting the seeds of success.
A York Hotel is "growing for gold" as it aims to win the Green Tourism Business Scheme’s ultimate accolade.
The Best Western Monkbar Hotel – which was the first city centre hotel to be presented with the Silver award – is undertaking a new raft of environmental initiatives to help it win Gold!
The in-house “Green Team” has literally pulled out its collective green-fingers to create an organic vegetable garden within its courtyard, complete with irrigation system.
The team, comprising of employees from all the hotel’s departments, have planted strawberries, chillis, peppers, beans and a host of herbs, all of which will be used by the kitchen brigade for the summer menu.
Monkbar Hotel Director June Nelsey said: “When we signed up to the Green Tourism Business scheme we always set our sights on the gold award.
“Year on year we have improved our environmental performance in terms of recycling and waste and energy reduction.
“The creation of the Green Team has successfully driven the environmental message home to not only all our staff, but our customers and suppliers too.
“The courtyard is one of the most popular areas in the hotel and is overlooked on all sides by guest bedrooms. Last year, we started with a herb garden, but now we gone one step further by adding fruit and vegetables, which are watered by a rainwater irrigation system ingeniously created by a member of the green team.”
The aim of the Green Tourism Business Scheme (GTBS) criteria is to offer guidelines to tourism businesses on how to make their operations more sustainable while still delivering a high quality service.
June added: “We believe we are now within striking distance of the gold award and, over the next few months, we will implement a number of new initiatives, as well as improving existing ones, to help us achieve our goal.”
19/04/201