Hotel Sigiriya wins Green Award in USA

Hotel Sigiriya won First Place in the category of Green Award for value hotels in the International Restaurant and Hotel Award (IRHA) USA. This is the first time a Sri Lankan Hotel has won a Green Award in the USA.

This is indeed a very prestigious achievement for Serendib Leisure Hotels, given the fact that many hotels from all over the world competed for this award under multiple categories, including Best Design Hotel, Best Family Friendly Hotel, Best New Hotel etc.

Hotel Sigiriya has been in the forefront of energy and environment conservation activities for several years now, and it is only fitting that the hard work, motivation and perseverance has now paid off with this recognition the hotel has received. The hotel has implemented several energy conservation and renewable energy projects, such as Solar Water Heaters, Biological Sewage Treatment Plan, Composting of garbage, replacing of diesel fired boiler with a Bio mass Gasifire etc.

The success factors of all these initiatives had been the dedication and perseverance of the staff, proper documentation and record keeping, which has enabled the hotel to carefully track the results over the years.

It is estimated that due to these energy conversation initiatives, the hotel is saving approximately 10% on expenses annually. Hotel Sigiriya is also the first hotel in Sri Lanka to have calculated its carbon foot print which also has been successfully reduced from 240. 2 MT in 2006/07 to 166.8 MT in 2007/08.

Srilal Miththapala, CEO Serendib Leisure admitted that most of these initiatives were begun primary to reduce energy costs, but as the projects developed, we found that there were greater benefits accruing not only directly but indirectly.

This has become a useful marketing tool now, where discerning travelers are beginning to choose hotels, which are more environmentally conscious. He went on to say, that he was happy of the very dedicated and motivated hotel operations team, who genuinely believed in what they did and relentlessly pursued with their initiatives, in spite of many obstacles, therefore, this award is a truly fitting reward.