Water is the essential part of life and no compromise should be done when the question is of quality & adequate quantity. At home, various utensils are available to store and carry the water but during travel, we often forget to carry our water bottle or a habit has been developed to spend on water during vacations.
As a traveler, I had felt the need to spread awareness with respect to the policies related to usage of water since, the habit of not carrying water bottle during travel cannot be justified under any circumstances as far as my opinion is concerned. The reason behind the opinion is, excessive use of plastic bottles for drinking water and then discarding it for dumping into sea.
In my travel to 13 countries and various other parts of my country, I had found the problem of water, “a common problem” and had observed that the travelers or the travel agencies are not keen in providing available solution or travelers are over-cautious on the quality of water.
For an instance, in hotels, nearly two bottles of water are offered on a complementary basis, whether it is booked for single person or twin sharing basis. However, at the time of booking, it is not mentioned that the quantity of water shall be 1 ltr or 200 ml or 350ml per bottle. So, as a natural requirement, it is difficult for single of two persons to survive on little amount of water, if bottle size is not a considerable one, preferably 1ltr. Further, the price of extra bottle is always high when purchased through mini-bar. Thus a traveler is left with no other choice but to pay high price for essential commodity. Now, with the above example, two things can be very well established:
- By providing small bottles in hotel rooms, hotel owners are encouraging to buy more water by paying higher price, thus making money out of it and putting pressure on the budget of travelers. Since the requirement of water is not occasional but it would be on daily basis. It is evident that the water offered in mini-bars in hotel rooms are priced more than the usual price or they are “priced specially”.
- Multiple plastic bottles are getting used which is harmful for environment.
As a responsible resident of this planet, the idle situation should have been installations of water dispensers in the hotel. Now-a-days, water purifiers, ROs, etc are very good in terms of quality of water they dispense and the quantity which they can purify. Thus it is responsibility of every hotel to at least install such purifiers in their hotel for the guests and offer water facility free of cost through the dispensers. This will have multiple benefits:
- Excessive usage of plastic bottles can be avoided which is becoming the biggest problem of earth.
- Sufficient availability of water can be ensured for guests without any extra costs.
- Quality of water can be monitored through the new technology used in purifiers.
I feel that every traveler should at least request the hotels where they are staying, to install such equipment or to provide water from such sources, if available instead of buying water bottles.
Out of my travels, I had experienced Emerald Gecko Resort in Havelock Island, India is using RO to provide water for the guests instead of water bottles (more information available in India section of webpage) and Quentin Hotel Golden Bear, Amsterdam using the same for guests, some others may be doing it, so would request everyone to share the names of those hotels which are providing such facilities in their regions, so as to contribute towards conservation of environment.