NEW DELHI: For the new-age green consumer and those who believe in sustainable tourism here is a good news. After eco-friendly hotels, India will have it’s first green hotel — The Park Hotel in Hyderabad. The investment in this 280-room hotel, scheduled to start operations by mid-2009, will be around Rs 350 crore, 15% higher than a regular hotel. And it might not be a good idea for smokers to book a room in the hotel as 90% of it’s area will be non-smoking.

Another Park Hotel property lined up in Pune, for which the group recently acquired 90,000 sq ft, will also be built on the lines of green buildings. “For the Hyderabad property, we will be seeking US Green Building Council’s (USGBC) certification. We will be targeting at least LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environment Design) gold rating for this hotel.

However, for the Pune project we will be only going for a LEED certificate and not gold or a platinum rating,” says Deepak Bali, V-P, projects, The Park. There will be designated smoking lounges in the property and more than 90% of the property space will be non-smoking.

There are around nine eco-friendly hotels in the country with ECOTEL certification such as Lotus Suites in Mumbai and Uppal’s Orchid in New Delhi. An eco-friendly hotel is constructed using recycled materials, whereas a green building aims at saving energy. “Though the initial cost of construction is almost 15% higher for a green hotel, we will be able to recover that through efficiency in operations. A green hotel saves 34.7% of the energy costs,” added Bali.

India has 17 green buildings and around 170 are registered with Indian Green Building Council (IGBC), awaiting LEED certification Though an exact fix is not available, globally there are very few certified green hotels such as San Francisco-based Orchard Garden Hotel. But according to IGBC’s estimates, there will be at least 100 green hotels worldwide in the next two years.