For its outstanding level of commitment to sustainable practices at the luxury level, City of Dreams Manila emerged as one of the three finalists among hundreds of global entries for the Forbes Travel Guide’s (FTG) inaugural “2023 Responsible Hospitality Award.”
Forbes Travel Guide is the only global rating system for luxury hotels, restaurants, spas, and cruises, and the world-renowned authority in genuine Five-Star service.
The FTG Responsible Hospitality Award recognizes the resort’s comprehensive sustainability initiatives led by Property President Geoff Andres (center, front row). With him are heads of business units involved in implementing eco-friendly initiatives, from left, front row: Executive Chef Markus Tauwald, Director of Engineering Lorgel Tabaniera, Director of Supply Chain Fulya Oguz, VP for HR Thesz Liwanag, Deputy Director of Hotel Operations Kelly de Guia, Director of F&B Chad Ogden and Kaizen Site Leader Bernie Matubis (4th from left, 2nd row) who also heads the Sustainability Committee composed of volunteer-members from various departments.
To be considered for this inaugural award, City of Dreams Manila demonstrated a commitment to responsible tourism with innovative sustainability initiatives. It proved to be a leader in both heart-of-house and guest-facing practices, such as housekeeping policies, recycling programs, eliminating single-use items, and contributions to community-based conservation efforts.
“We thankForbes Travel Guide for recognizing our eco-friendly practices at a luxury level and seamlessly integrating these into our guests’ experience. Through the vision of our parent company, Melco Resorts & Entertainment, led by our chairman and CEO Lawrence Ho, we remain committed on delivering sustainable luxury,” said City of Dreams Manila Property President Geoff Andres.
The announcement was made at the fourth annual Best of the Year awards during the FTG Summit in Las Vegas in early March. For City of Dreams, the recognition comes a month after FTG awarded the integrated resort’s three hotels for the sixth time with: Five-Star (Nüwa Manila and Nüwa Spa) and Four-Star (Hyatt Regency Manila and Nobu Hotel Manila).
Alongside the yearly list of Five-Star, Four-Star, and Recommended properties, FTG unveiled several special awards to celebrate the exemplary properties and staff members who stand out in their service of guests and co-workers.
Properties in Forbes Travel Guide’s worldwide collection were asked to submit nominations for the industry awards. An executive panel then chose the winners among hundreds of entries and named City of Dreams Manila one of three finalists for the Responsible Hospitality accolade. In last year’s Best of the Year Awards, City of Dreams was named winner of “Work Here, Work Happy Award.”
Colleague-volunteers from different departments of City of Dreams Manila comprise the Sustainability Committee. They actively implement eco-friendly measures on property to help advance Melco’s ‘Above and Beyond’ vision to achieve carbon neutral and zero waste resorts in all its jurisdictions of operations by 2030.
Sustainable initiatives
The three hotels at City of Dreams also received the 2022-2024 ASEAN Green Hotel Award from the region’s tourism organizations, which recognized the resort’s eco-luxury projects on renewable energy, energy efficiency, reduction in water consumption, recycling, digitalization of processes, sustainable sourcing, and supporting local small and medium enterprises.
In 2022, the property reduced the use of single-use plastics including water bottles, disposable amenity bottles, and other plastic consumables with the installation on site of a US$370,000 NORDAQ water filtration plant and a bottling system, and using reusable, refillable pump bottles and other eco-friendly amenities in rooms.
With the 3,120 PV solar panels installed at the topmost floor of its parking building, it is the first integrated resort in the country to utilize solar solutions. The solar panels have been fully operational since the beginning of 2020 and can generate 1.2MW at full capacity. On an annual basis, the panels can generate over 1,600 MWh, which is equivalent to charging over 139 million smartphones in a year.
The property reuses treated greywater for its cooling towers to reduce water consumption, an initiative that is estimated to save about 88 Olympic-sized swimming pools worth of water from the city’s supply. Laundry wastewater is also being reused for cooling towers, the gardens, and clean latrines.
The resort also practices sustainable sourcing in support of Filipino small and medium Enterprises (SMEs), with 86 percent procured from local vendors.