Maldives Promotion House – Hilton Maldives Iru Fushi Resort & Spa has won the Blue Energy Award. Blue Energy is a Hilton organisation promoted within each Hilton Hotel across the globe promoting sustainable initiatives within an individual property and has been a mandatory part of the brand standards since 2011.

The Blue Energy committee at the Hilton Iru Fushi has been in effect since April 2011 and is made up of passionate team members consisting of one chairperson and five ‘champions’ who constantly review and evaluate four areas – guest relations and events, sustainability, community and team members activities.  In addition to this team there is a webmaster that provides support for all internal communications.

Hilton presents on a monthly basis various challenges which might include the increase of revenue, problem resolution and how to support the local community.  A open forum encourages team members from all the resort  to share ideas based on these ‘challenges’ or based on what events they would like to see in the resort.

For the team member based activities at the Hilton Iru fushi, recent activities included a football league, mother language quiz – with copious amounts of ice cream as prizes, cupcake treats for all female team members to celebrate International Women’s Day and other sporting events throughout the year.

In the run up to Earth Hour, the resort ran various activities in the team areas to support this global event by shutting down all air conditioning units for ten hours, a GREEN DJ performed in their activity centre and a recycling competition was run.  They also regularly involve team members in cleaning local islands to keep them clear of debris and supporting the fragile reefs surrounding the resort with underwater cleanup tasks.

Throughout the year, there are also special events for the guests to help promote sustainability such as special spa treatments under the supervision of the Ayurvedic Doctor and children’s activities.

The Hilton Iru Fushi broke the Maldivian Blood Services record last year for the record amount of litres of blood collected in a day from team members, which will be repeated again very soon.  Local islands are also supported with education programmes with an introduction in to tourism and allowing the people of the future to explore luxury resorts.

“Blue energy is a great initiative from Hilton encouraging, supporting and recognising our efforts in terms of the 4 areas. We have a fantastic team here at Hilton Maldives who are always coming up with ideas for new events or ways to support the community such as the blood donation in 2011,” Training Manager & Blue energy chairperson, Katie McGovern said.

“We also have a tool to share and explore different events from Hilton properties around the world and it is through this that we have been recognised as being so successful in the last 12 months.  I am really proud to be part of such an enthusiastic and supportive team and look forward to more great events throughout 2012,” Katie added.