Athena Hotel Sustainability policy
Our Sustainable Development Policy sets out our vision and approach to sustainable development creating a day to day and general dynamic operations plan.
Sustainable Development Policy
Vision
To make travel experiences special by providing accommodation that cause minimal environmental impact, respect the culture and people of local community and offer real economic benefit.
Policy
As member of a leading company (Kostaridis Group of Companies), we recognise that the environment, communities and cultures within which we operate are vital to the success of our business. Responsible Leadership is one of the company’s core values and underlines our commitment to sustainable development and to making a positive impact on society.
We therefore commit in the long term to:
Embed sustainable development principles into core business practices
Use the collective influence of Athena Hotel and Athineon Hotel to drive sustainability within the local economy via our partners and suppliers.
Understand and respect the needs of our guests, colleagues, shareholders, suppliers, partners and local communities
Comply with all relevant legislation (local, national and in several cases international practices), act in advance of it and keep pace with best practice
In support of the above, we will work to:
Prevent pollution wherever possible and continually improve our environmental performance, specifically by reducing the need to natural resources like water, carbon emissions for hotel energy, and office premises by using paper recycling and environmental friendly equipment
Optimise our “accommodation” environmental, economic and social impact by embedding sustainability into our supply chain and initiating activities that protect the natural environment and enhance local livelihoods (socially and economically)
Encourage our guests to choose more sustainable touristic options and to take action to reduce negative impacts and maximise their positive impacts in the destination
Targets & Goals
Sustainable Plan
Travel and tourism is one of the world’s largest industries. The growth and employment it creates, makes it of critical importance to the global national and local economy. From a sustainable development perspective, this poses a challenge: how to manage growth in an industry highly dependent on fossil fuel and biodiversity in a world of finite natural resources. Hotel industry has been facing up to this challenge for over a decade. However, our new sustainability plan marks a small step change in our response. It shows significant integration of environmental and social principles into the way we do business – performance measures, processes and customer proposition. These targets / goals will be hard to achieve, but this plan already has the support of many of our partners as well as the national government who are key to its success. We plan to build these partnerships as the plan progresses, working with colleagues, customers, partners, suppliers, governments, trade bodies, NGOs, academics and other stakeholders to achieve the goals and commitments we share.
Our vision is to make tourism experiences special whilst minimising environmental impact, respecting culture and people and bringing economic benefits to communities.
Supporting local Community
The leisure travel industry can have both positive and negative impacts on the local community, our challenge is to manage these impacts and provide information to guests and colleagues to minimise negative. We support many sustainable tourism actions with partners and local organisations, to enhance the economic benefits that tourism can bring to local community.
Saving Water
Tourism is a thirsty industry and can often put pressure on local water supplies. We strongly support clean water projects as well as working with our employees and suppliers to reduce water consumption.
Reducing Waste
Waste management is an important issue for hotels and destinations and is a growing priority for all companies within our group but especially for Athena and Athineon Hotels. We are minimising the purchase of individual packaging products (such as bath amenities) where it is possible without compromising our quality of services or health & safety standards.
Protecting Biodiversity and Natural Environment
Rhodes Island offers a great variety of deferent kind of tourist attractions and has many natural and manmade environmental / archeological points of interest such as the “Valley of the Butterflies” or “Prasonisi” which are well known and are special because of their biodiversity, something we’re keen to protect. Our activities range from supporting the Rhodian Butterfly protection project to the minimising of impact from tourist visitation at Prasonisi and other famous beach locations in Rhodes Island. Sun Palace provides information to our guests and staff regarding how to “be safe and think green” while visiting the beach.
Child Protection Policy
Our Hotels are committed to child protection – both those we accommodate during holiday and those who live in destination. We condemn the exploitation of children, a fundamental abuse of a child’s human rights and dignity, and we reserve the right to terminate business with any person or company that is engaged or associated with any form of exploitation or abuse. Tourism businesses have an important role to play in protecting children’s rights.
Investing in Training
We invest in training for suppliers and other stakeholders to give them the skills they need to deliver our commitment to sustainability. We train our Purchasing and Supply department to search and find the best eco-friendly suppliers and products to use in our hotels departments and all suppliers must present their ISO or Haccp certifications. We request all senior and middle managers are trained by suppliers (wherever and whenever that is possible) in the corect use of all products and equipment. Hotel Managers and Supervisors will then train our hotel staff to use supplied products and equipment according to manufactures standards.
Green Policy for our Guests
Athena and Athineon Hotels offer high quality services and according to our sustainability plan we invest in using a much more eco-friendly powering business plan by installing modern solutions for hot water, replacing mini fridges to most hotel rooms and restaurant buffets leading to a reduce of electric power consumption. We would like to enlist the help of our guests in achieving our aims by asking them to:
Turn off lights when leaving the room.
Turn off the television when leaving the room. When not in use, switch off using the main switch, rather than leaving the TV on standby.
Turn off taps. We would appreciate if you could turn the tap off when you are brushing your teeth or shaving rather than leaving it running throughout, if it is convenient for you to do so.
If you notice dripping taps, electrical problems etc., please report them to the reception immediately so that we may repair them.
Limit the use of air-conditioning and please check the windows and make sure that all room doors are closed when A/C is on, so it is not wasted. It may sound obvious, but it’s so easy to overlook these simple things.
Use as much electricity and water to make your stay comfortable, but please do not waste either. This will help the hotel to minimize the consumption of water and energy which will minimize the environmental impact for island of Rhodes.
Leave newspapers out of the bins so they can be collected separately by the housekeeping staff.
Towel and Linen Policy apply.
Our policy is to ensure that guests have a comfortable stay. Therefore bed sheets will be changed on every second day for a long stay guest and towels will be changed only when left on the bathroom floor by guests.