Queens Hotel Exterior image with SHC flags

Our sustainability journey Looking after you, our community and our environment

Every little change we make helps us to play our part in a more sustainable future for everyone. We understand how everyday operations at The Queens Hotel can impact the local community and we take the responsibility to mitigate that impact very seriously.

Our vision for 2024 and beyond is to maintain our Green Tourism Gold accreditation. As we take further steps along this journey, we will continually look to improve, make sustainable choices and embed sustainable practices across everything we do and the way that every person in our team thinks.

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ENVIRONMENTAL COMMITMENT

As we take steps along our sustainability journey, we continually look to improve, make sustainable choices and embed sustainable practices across everything we do and the way that every person in our team thinks. Including:

Work diligently to minimise our waste and conserve natural resources, particularly through energy and water conservation.
Partner with Greenview who monitor our energy and water use and calculate our waste. They help us to record our sustainability initiatives and also work out our energy usage per bedroom and per guest to enable us to set specific energy saving targets.
Reduce and measure our CO2 emissions on an annual basis using the Hotel Carbon Management Initiative (HCMI) measuring tool.
Reduce use of pollutants and harmful chemicals both outside and inside our hotels. Wherever possible ozone cleaning products.
Value the cultural heritage of our hotels, allowing us to give our guests an authentically local experience.
Encourage our guests and our team members to travel sustainably and enjoy the bio-diverse areas we are located close to.
Replacing traditional plastic keycards with wooden keycards.

The Queens Hotel Montpellier District shops

SOCIAL AND CULTURAL COMMITMENT

One of our core values is to put our hotel at the heart of the local community, creating initiatives that nurture and take care of our teams whilst also supporting the local businesses and community around us. These include:

Providing a safe and secure working environment for our teams and offering them the support they need to work effectively. This includes:
- Enhanced team benefits for maternity/paternity leave, contributions towards leisure passes, food bundles and free hotel breaks.
- Support for the equal treatment and rights of people.
- Hiring team members without any discrimination on the grounds of age, race, gender, religion, disability or status.
- Access to training courses with extensive opportunities to develop.
A commitment to actively engage with the local community by supporting local events such as Cheltenham Festivals and a Christmas present drops to elderly patients in Cheltenham Gloucester Hospitals Charity. And, through our support of local charities including LINK.
A continued drive to source products locally, wherever possible and to ensure all suppliers have their own green and ethical procurement policy. Including offering British made organic toiletries and amenities from 100 Acres in all guest rooms.
A dedicated green, social and charity team to drive forward and communicate all new initiatives.

Sourcing locally

Our menus are crammed full of quality ingredients produced by suppliers based locally to Cheltenham and the Cotswolds. This responsible sourcing makes a significant reduction to our carbon footprint and contributes back into our local community and regional economy. It also means our seasonal menus are bursting with quality flavours which adds to the overall dining experience. Take for example Woodchester wines, based in the Cotswolds and rated one of the best Sauvignon Blancs in the world. The honey that you will find on our breakfast menu and within a number of dishes is produced by the beehives on our roof. We ensure that the fish used on our menus are from a sustainable source along with using Fairtrade chocolate in our recipes..

We recognise there is a growing need to provide plant-based and vegetarian options on our menu to help guests stick to a healthier lifestyle and lower our impact on the planet. You will find Victoria’s has various delicious vegan, vegetarian and gluten free options for you to dine on.

Giving back with your feedback

Feedback about your visit means everything to us. It helps us to know what we are doing right and learn from any mistakes we may make. And, every time you give us feedback (good or constructive) either via an online site or by direct email to us, then we will plant a tree with our partner More Trees and support their tree planting and community programmes in North Haiti, East Kenya and Madagascar. It is a little way of us continuing to make small steps towards a greater change for our planet.

With guest experience, community and sustainability such a key part of everything we do, our give back for feedback initiative combines all three elements seamlessly together. Ask a member of the team about this initiative during your next stay or head to a review website now to leave a review.

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Community support

The Queens Hotel plays a pivotal part in the local community. We are key partners to the local tourism board VisitCheltenham who drive visitors into our local region and we are proud sponsors in kind of Cheltenham Festivals that organise four key festivals across the year and bring together some of the UK’s most talented jazz musicians, scientists and authors to Cheltenham.

Green Tourism

To promote a greener, cleaner environment for people, places and our plants we are involved with the Green Tourism Accreditation programme and have been awarded the gold award for our work. The Green Tourism programme is acknowledged worldwide as an indicator of a good environmentally friendly practice and we are proud to hold the Gold Green Tourism award at The Queens Hotel.

Green Tourism focuses on:

Reducing energy use.
Saving water.
Efficient and eco-friendly waste disposal.
Ethical buying.
Staying local and seasonal.
Minimising food miles.
Promoting biodiversity.
Adopting a smart, sustainable outlook from top to bottom.
Helping to conserve local heritage.

Find out more

Charity support

We support a number of local charities with their events such as being a proud sponsor to the Leukaemia and Intensive Chemotherapy fund’s annual fashion show in 2022. Our local charity of the year is Cheltenham Gloucester Hospitals Charity where we organise a number of initiatives including Christmas present drops to elderly patients and fundraising events with the whole team. We are also partnering with LINC local charity and will be supporting a number of their fundraising events.

How you can play your part

You can help us and play your part on our journey. Here are some ideas of how and suggestions for low-carbon-impacting activities:

Where feasible, travel to the hotel by train or local bus. We are just one mile from Cheltenham train station and walking distance from the main coach station connecting you to the rest of the UK.
If you are hiring a car, choose electric, you can charge at our EV charging point.
Travel around the local area on two wheels. We have a partnership with The Bicycle Hub near Cheltenham Spa train station and you can hire bikes to uncover the wonderful sights of our town
Enjoy our local region and explore new areas. There are a number of wonderful walks close by or in the nearby Cotswolds. Click here for some inspirational walks.
Dine with us and enjoy our locally sourced produce. The team in Victoria’s cannot wait to welcome you.

This policy is designed to act as a framework to enable all stakeholders to use as guidance across all general hotel operations. Stakeholders include both internal and external team members as well as hotel guests (where applicable).

Ask a member of our team if you have any questions on our “green” journey or ,to give us feedback about any of our green initiatives or ideas that you might have, simply click here to share it with us.

Let us know if you have suggestions of areas where we can improve to ensure that we both meet and exceed your expectations. Or, complete our feedback form by clicking here.