• Hotel, Casino & Club News

Element Hotel: An Island of Green in the Las Vegas Desert

One of the first things you notice about the Element Hotel in Summerlin is the natural lighting; the massive windows give the Westin Element an open, airy, relaxed feel with an unobstructed view of the pool area. The natural lighting is more than esthetics at work; it’s just one of the reasons the United States Green Building Council (USGBC) gave the Element its LEED Certification as a green building. 

President Barack Obama was so impressed with the green aspects of the hotel that he stayed at the Element in January of 2012.

“The Westin name has always been associated with quality,” said David Smith, Vice President and General Manager. “Now they have created a hotel brand by selecting services that help enhance the guest experience by providing an environment that promotes green practices without what was once perceived as inconvenient or less. The Westin Element is the next level of commitment to the business traveler. Here at the Element, we make it convenient for our guest to recycle and reduce waste as part of simple practices that we maintain for our guest. The facilities were designed and constructed to assist with this. A couple examples are; we provide EUV charging stations so guest can charge their electric vehicles on site. We also reduce waste by having our in room amenities available via dispensers that don’t require plastic bottles be discarded as waste.”

The Element as a new hotel brand has made a point to emphasize the virtues of “going green” by making it easy for its guest to be a part of these practices without inconvenience. This is a true service enhancement.

Said Smith, “Our 123 rooms have amazing creature comforts from the luxurious Westin Heavenly Beds to the more “techie” elements of the hotel: they can walk in and plug and play into their room’s docking station and “take over” the speakers and screen of the television to enjoy any media content they may have brought along with them on phones, pads or other devices. Chargers for phones and pads are available in every room.”

The Westin Element is an upscale corporate hotel with the bulk of visitors staying during business travel, but a closer look reveals clean and green features like the recycle composite products that went into producing the flooring and energy efficient next generation fluorescent lights. Generous natural lighting translates into less use of electric light. Electric lighting is a huge contributor to increased use of air conditioning during warmer weather.

The hotel has a great work out room; instead of being located in some far off corner in the back of the property, it is conveniently right up front. Our guests can not only peddle your way to heart health, through an innovative generator, they can burn off calories and turn the energy into a charge for their iPhone.

Guest rooms use Energy Star appliances including refrigerators, cook tops, microwaves and dishwashers. Guests can prepare anything from a snack to a gourmet meal. Along with our other amenities, breakfasts are provided with no “resort fees”.

The 72,000 square foot Element Hotel is on what may well be the greenest block in the State of Nevada. It is certainly the greenest in Summerlin; the next door neighbor the Las Vegas Cyclery is the only zero net bike shop in the country. The 10,000 square foot building uses solar and onsite wind power to produce more energy than it uses. The shop specializes in sales and bicycle tours.

Element Hotel Las Vegas is one of the first hotel concepts that was built and maintained with “green practices” at the forefront.  It’s the brand strategy.  The ownership, the management company, the employees and the franchise company are all committed to continually improving and evaluating new practices in an effort to create new efficiencies and reduce waste.