NEW YORK—Sharing is caring. Arlo Hotels is striving to be a home base for the eco-conscious community and spark sustainable changes in travel through its Arlo Cares initiative.
While hotels across the board see “going green” as standard practice—from eliminating single-use plastics to employing green technology for heating and cooling—the Arlo brand strives to take efforts a step further to engage guests and help them feel like they’re part of something bigger.
“We’ve eliminated more than 1.3 million pieces of plastic waste to date, and this number continues to climb at a rate of 158 pieces of plastic saved per hour,” said Dayna Castano, corporate director of marketing, Quadrum Global, ownership company for Arlo Hotels. “We monitor all of this on a real-time ticker on the Arlo Cares homepage, and we are actively seeking ways in which we can speed the counter to eliminate progressively more and more single-use plastics.”
The brand is also reaching outside the hotel and into the community to build awareness and create a wider discussion around topics of sustainability and the environment.
“We’ve also launched our pARLOur Talks series, bringing together leaders in the eco-friendly space to discuss the benefits of a green lifestyle, and how to make small yet mighty shifts in day-to-day living,” said Castano. “Our first event, ‘The Future of Fashion & Sustainability’ was hosted by WAYE and had a waitlist for attendance. We’re excited to continue these series, along with other fun, sustainability focused events, to give more attention to earth-ethical ways of living and reach a wider audience.”
The response has been positive. Employees are extremely passionate about it, according to Castano, and have helped to spread the word to incoming guests, alerting them to the refillable water stations and explaining why the brand doesn’t offer plastic straws with beverages.
“It’s also been really great to see our employees, guests and local communities coming together on Arlo Cares initiatives,” she said. “For example, we hosted an Arlo Cares Beach Cleanup at Rockaway Beach [in Queens, NY] on International Coastal Cleanup Day (Sept. 15), and we had a complete mix of employees, partners, locals, friends and family come out to assist. We have additional programming in the works, like next year’s Spring Fest celebration during Earth Day weekend, our quarterly neighborhood cleanups, weekly Arlo Cares movie nights and more. We’re a small hospitality company, which allows everyone to provide input and feedback. A few members of our team have already made suggestions on future pARLOur Talks speakers, charitable initiatives and more.”
Arlo Hotels plans to build on the momentum of this project, with sights set on expansion in New York and other domestic markets.
“We’re excited to launch this program at Arlo properties nationwide. We’ll be taking extreme care in the development of future properties to make sure we’re enhancing the ecospheres in which we operate,” she said.
According to Castano, a deep-rooted care for the environment extends beyond just Arlo; it’s a huge passion for the brand’s ownership company, Quadrum Global, which strives to preserve and protect the natural environment.
“Quadrum has pledged to incorporate nature inside or outside of all future developments, so not only will Arlo properties have Arlo Cares programming consistent throughout the brand but will actually begin housing and developing eco-friendly environments and green spaces,” she said. “On Oct. 9, Quadrum dedicated ‘The Canoe,’ a public green space located near the entrance of the Lincoln Tunnel [in Manhattan], with government officials and community representatives, to give back to the Hell’s Kitchen and Hudson Yards neighborhoods where Arlo Midtown will launch in early 2020. This is just another way we’re seeing the program evolve, as it grows to include our ownership group and various partner companies.”