Wyndham Hotel Group has agreed with the Days Hospitality Inc. of Markham, Ontario to build 17 new Ramada Inns in Eastern Canada over the next 10 years.

One of many brands not slowing down their expansion regardless of the economic turmoil of the past year in the United States and world markets, the hotel industry continues to charge on.

The group went with the Ramada Inn because it is “positioned as a global leader in midmarket lodging and emphasizes the importance of service, product quality and high standards,” according to Scott McPhail, Days Hospitality chief operating officer.

“We are focused on growing and strengthening the Ramada brand,” said Mark Young, Ramada brand senior vice president. “This agreement with Days Hospitality is a testimony to that commitment. Our growth in Canada, Asia and Europe demonstrates the brand’s increasing success.”

Read More Here.

Located in Copenhagen, the Brochner Hotels chain has become the world’s first 100% CO2 neutral hotel chain.

“There are a great number of major international hotelchains which are working actively today with economy measures with regard to energy and climate reductions and which have set up ambitious goals of becoming climate neutral one day. However, we are actually - as far as I know - the first chain in the world, which has gone the whole length already now,” says General Manager Kirsten Brøchner.

The chain is small, with only 4 hotels all located in Copenhagen. Their achievement is none the less something to take note of.

Hotel chains around the country have begun an effort to be more green and environmentally friendly, some of which have popped up in and round such hot tourist destinations as San Francisco, California.

Read more here.

The Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has announced plans to take up the green challenge.

PATA will be investing in two sustainable tourist projects “as part of a range of measures to reduce the carbon impact of the PATA CEO Challenge.”

In his opening comments at the Challenge, outgoing-PATA Chairman Brian Deeson said that PATA would contribute to Thai Royal Project, a sustainable development initiative in northern Thailand, as well as the not-for-profit organisation Atmosfair, which manages carbon-reducing projects worldwide.

In January 2008, PATA signed an agreement with EC3 Global, managers of the Green Globe brand in Asia Pacific, to “use its science and systems to help significantly reduce the carbon footprint of key elements of the CEO Challenge”. Green Globe is the leading international environmental benchmarking and certification programme for the travel and tourism industry.

Most of their attention is being focused on participating in the Royal Project in Thailand.

“While this is new territory for us, we have tried to do everything possible to reduce our emissions, as well as learn how we can improve our performance for future events. Our approach is to mitigate where possible and offset where we can’t,” MR Deeson said.

Read the PATA Press Release.