To view the rest of this series, click on the above video to go to the YouTube page and choose Part 2 and 3 from the sidebar. It will quickly tell you what green hotel programs to be skeptical of and which to believe; done by MBA students at Georgetown University.

Most hotels have incorporated green programs to both meet customer demands for a greener experience and save money. I think we can agree that most of the time, the major hotels use “green” as an excuse to cut corners rather than to actually do anything for the environment, including not letting water get hot unless you run it for five minutes first, and not using green detergents but only changing sheets and towels once every few days for extended visits.

There are hotels that kick it up a notch and actually do go much further with their green programs. In the US, they are likely to be members of a group like the Green Hotels Association. The Green Hotels Association page makes a good point that instead of certifying, a hotel should pour that money back into improving the quality and “green” nature of the stay, a good point as long as a hoteliers heart is in the right place and not firmly fixed on the bottom line.

If you’d like something a little greener, check the Green Key Eco-Rating Program members. Hoteliers pay a low registration fee ($350.00) and have onsite inspections done to ensure that they have adequate measures in place to display the Green Key logo. An audit is also done on the property with over 150 questions to ensure that the property is operating in the greenest manner possible.

If you want to go even further still down the green vacation path, consider ecotourism in any country. Simply enter “ecotourism” and the country of your choice in a Google search and you’ll be rewarded with many choices from hotels and resorts that make preservation of the environment not a sidebar to an enjoyable stay, but a key mission statement of the property.