Dubai Tourism hosts sustainability workshop for 51 hotels

Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing (Dubai Tourism) hosted an immersive sustainability-focused workshop.

The Sustainability Board Game was covered and hospitality stakeholders were encouraged to enroll their properties in the 'carbon calculator'. Both the game and the calculator have been created specifically for the hotel industry and serve as awareness tools used by the Dubai Sustainable Tourism (DST) initiative, launched by Dubai Tourism to support and encourage hotels to actively drive sustainable tourism practices, efficiently manage their resources and reduce the collective carbon footprint of Dubai’s tourism industry.

74 hospitality professionals from 51 hotels attended the workshop in addition to representatives from Dubai Municipality who presented the 'Dubai Lamp', said to be the world’s most energy efficient lamp designed by Philips Lighting and Dubai Municipality, which can reduce electricity used for lighting by up to 90%. The industry event held at Zabeel House by Jumeirah, Al Seef was hosted by Tourism Development & Investments at Dubai Tourism. 

Yousuf Lootah, the executive director – tourism development & investments of Dubai Tourism, explained the mechanics of the board game and highlighted DST’s carbon calculator programme.

The board game allows participating teams to measure the levels of electricity and water consumption in their establishments, and identify ways in which they can reduce costs. Hotel establishments learn how to efficiently measure and reduce energy through three easy steps: (a) calculating the current consumption per room and isolating areas that are responsible for excessive output, (b) identifying sustainable solutions and optimising the efficiency of those areas, and (c) testing the application of sustainable solutions by calculating how much water and energy can be conserved. More than 630 participants from over 110 hotels have played the game so far during events and roadshows organised by Dubai Tourism.  

Meanwhile, the carbon calculator programme developed by Dubai Tourism in partnership with Dubai Carbon, allows hotels to help establish a baseline, benchmark among all hospitality establishments in Dubai and identify various cost saving opportunities.