Tune Hotels.com to shut down its external and lobby lights during earth Hour as part of ongoing Tune Hotels.com ‘Less Waste, More Earth’ green initiative

Kuala Lumpur – Tune Hotels.com – In conjunction with Earth Hour, Tune Hotels.com, the limited service hotel brand providing a “5-star sleeping experience at a 1-star price”, will be shutting down its main lobby and exterior lights this Saturday, 27 March 2010 from 8.30pm to 9.30pm at its hotels in Kuala Lumpur, Kota Kinabalu, Kuching, KLIA-LCCT Airport, Penang, Legian & Kuta in Bali, Indonesia.

“This is just a small part of our ongoing ‘Less Waste, More Earth’ green initiatives, in which we try to do our part to encourage everyone to make smarter choices about the use of resources”, said Tune Hotels.com Group CEO, Mark Lankester.

Tune Hotels.com utilises an affordable pay-as-you-use system for major energy consuming amenities like air-conditioning. As explained by guest Mrs. V.V. Palarca from the Philippines, “I liked the hotel’s concern for energy conservation. To cut down on energy costs guests pay for the amount of air-conditioning used. Since we were out most of the time, our pre-paid 12-hour AC lasted us our whole 3 nights stay.” Optional air-conditioning is programmed into guest keycards via affordably priced ‘credit units’ of 12 hours for RM13.49 and 24 hours for RM21.00. Ceiling fans are a standard feature in all Tune Hotels.com rooms for guests who prefer to consume even less power.

“Guests find the small charges very reasonable, yet as with everything, when you are fully aware of what a resource costs you, you tend to be more careful with how you use it,” said Regional head of operations for Tune Hotels.com, Kishore Suppiah, adding that each room is only issued one keycard with power access to ensure that power in the room is not activated when the guest is out, hallway air-conditioners are set on a timer system so they turn on in alternate sequence to conserve energy and energy-efficient bulbs are used in the properties as much as possible.

Tune Hotels.com also reduces water consumption and the flow of laundry effluents into the environment by renting towels (RM5 per towel inclusive of complimentary toiletries), and soon, allowing guests staying for more than 1 night to choose to have their bed linens changed on alternate days instead of daily. “At home most people are quite comfortable with not changing their towels and bed linens every single day; we’re just allowing our guests to be just as sensible within our hotels,” said Kishore.

Other ongoing efforts include incorporating ‘green principles’ into hotel design e.g. experimenting with open concept corridors that minimise air-conditioning requirements and placing recycling bins separating metal, plastic and paper in the hotels.

This year, Tune Hotels.com will be bringing their green efforts to their Danga Bay, Johor, Kota Damansara and London which has been well received to date. Tune Hotels.com has also uploaded a video educating people about their concept on YouTube.com, to view kindly copy and paste this link http://bit.ly/b3qt7B.

Stay tuned to Tune Hotels.com by following us on Twitter & Facebook where we will provide real time updates on our latest promotion. Photos will be available on www.flickr.com/tunehotels. Visit www.tunehotels.com for more information and bookings, or call the Tune Hotels.com Call Centre +6 (03) 7962 5888, Monday- Friday 9:00am -9:00pm (excluding Public Holidays).

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