Energy use and maintenance costs of upmarket hotels

• 4-star and 5-star hotels are similar in energy use and maintenance costs.
• Benchmarking charts are established for comparing energy use and maintenance costs.
• Incremental energy use and maintenance costs can be economized by scale of hotels.
• Energy use is not significantly correlated with repair and maintenance cost.

Aimed at examining the relation between energy use and maintenance costs of hotels, face-to-face interviews were conducted under a study to collect reliable energy and cost data of 30 upmarket hotels in Hong Kong, including those in the 4-star and 5-star classes. Analyzing the data revealed that for both normalized energy consumptions and maintenance costs, they were not significantly different between the two classes of hotels. Charts for benchmarking energy performance and maintenance costs were established. Electricity accounted for most of the energy used by the hotels and, among the maintenance cost elements, capital project cost dominated. Neither the cost for capital projects nor that for routine repair and maintenance was correlated with the total energy use. Causes for such missing links between energy use and maintenance costs, which are crucial information for formulation of energy reduction measures, require further investigations.