Many hotel operators calculate their energy usage in a vacuum.

The singular focus on achieving the highest possible 'heads-to-beds' rate leaves little time for tracking energy usage. Some hotel managers commit to tracking this data but without the thorough understanding of how these usage rates vary across multiple site locations.

Others have no idea how their rates compare to those of competitors in the hotel marketplace. This offers little insight into what their organization is doing well, or, more importantly, where they can improve.

The result: Exorbitant energy costs negatively offset the profits from strong heads-to-beds rates, leaving operators to wonder where they went wrong. And if they don't figure it out soon, their business-and their bottom line-will pay. Literally.

Benchmarking Best Practices

But this situation can be reversed with proper benchmarking and tracking techniques. That's the key to correctly determining an organization's energy effectiveness, and identifying high-return capital improvements and energy-efficient investment opportunities.

I touched on this topic in my February article, Compiling Utility Data to Make Capital Spending Decisions, but its far-reaching applications deserve more drilling.

The obvious benchmarking technique is compiling all information relevant to hotel sites' energy usage on a daily basis. At the outset, calculate the number of occupied and available rooms ...