The Sybaritic Single may get quite wasteful at times, especially when staying at luxury hotels. Being totally frank, recycling and reusing isn’t part of his lifestyle.
“I cannot ask guests to re-use their beds or towels when I charge them this much, it’s simply not luxury – but it is my obligation to invest in a modern, eco-friendly laundry,” repeats his luxury hospitality mentor and the industry legend again and again. Superb!
A few days ago, it took the Sybaritic Single over an hour to fill a bath tub at Park Hyatt Zanzibar. Why? The hotel decided to install a silly water-saving device not just in the sinks but also in the bath tub. Is having to wait for a bath 90 minutes truly a luxury? And who really needs to save water in the middle of the Indian Ocean during the long rain monsoon season?
Meanwhile, the Park Hyatt isn’t too bothered about flying Le Labo Bergamote 22 hair conditioner all the way from America to Stone Town in 50ml plastic bottles. 12,748km to be precise – they brought a bergamot-scented toiletry back to the Spice Island.
While the Sybaritic Single agrees that his Fauchon groceries and Dior garments arrive dramatically overpacked (a silly T-shirt comes wrapped in layers of silk paper, in a box topped with more silk paper in a huge bag decorated with ribbons and metal charms), he believes that luxury hotels tend to push the sustainability agenda to another extreme. He isn’t there to reuse beds or wait for bathtubs to be ready, but to escape and enjoy his time without having to adjust the daily routine around the hotel’s another CSR initiative.
Thankfully, he had a chance to mention his observation to the hotel manager who promptly arranged for the tick-box water-conserving device to be removed from the his bath so he could fill it in mere 10 minutes and enjoy his morning properly – with Cristal 2014 sparkling in his “Zanzibar blue” Baccarat flûte.
