Who knew soap dispensers could be so controversial?

IHG found out just how much when guests to their Innovation Hotel website debated the environmental benefits vs. hygiene concerns of the resource-saving measure. Some guests like the reduction in waste, while others miss the small, personal bottles.

With the late August update of Innovation Hotel 2.0, David Jerome, senior vice president for global corporate responsibility, expects to collect even more feedback on sustainability practices from all of the company’s stakeholders.

Innovation Hotel, he says, is an online showcase for ideas in sustainable tourism. The video-game-like interface offers a virtual tour of the company’s resource-saving measures as if they were all in one big building, not scattered among its 4,500 properties.

For example, click a round amber icon of two people and up pops the InterContinental San Francisco, Howard Street, where guests can use an eco-friendly Zipcar Toyota Prius Plug-In Hybrid Vehicle to get around.

Click a fuchsia lightening bolt icon for a link to Hotel Indigo’s green roof in San Diego, which reduces energy consumption by cutting usage of heating and air conditioning.

Yet another icon drills down to water reduction efforts – 52.6 million gallons -- through the towel reuse program.

Visitors to the Innovation Hotel 2.0 website have opinions. The green roof sparked the following comments.

• I like this idea very much. Our property is in Cha-Am, Thailand where it does get very hot during summer.
• Terrific idea for low-rise properties.

Meanwhile the towel-reuse program sparked an outrageous (or is it?) idea.

• Is it feasible to use air showers for drying instead of towels? Just like when hand drying, paper towels/tissue papers are no longer wasted. Perhaps having air showers for drying the body after a bath can have the same benefit. Less used towels, less water used to wash these. (sic)

The website shows how social media can be a two-way communication tool. Innovation Hotel 2.0 is a public relations tool, bragging about what the hotel is doing. It’s also a feedback tool, listening to the public.

Jerome says some ideas are far out there, but others may be immediately actionable. “What we’re trying to do is create the future we all want. We’ve opened up our development process to good ideas. Not just what we’re doing today, but we’re open to anyone’s ideas.”

“It builds on the success of our sustainability system,” he says. “I’m excited to see how the ideas generated from the Innovation Hotel can feed into this and help create hotels guests love.”

About those soap dispensers?

It’s too early to make decisions and, thus spend money. While environmental surveys show that people want them, comments from the website show the design isn’t quite there.

Better feedback, such as this, results in better overall decisions, says one observer.