Boycott Omni Hotels – Part 3

Let’s just make the numbers up.  That’s what’s happening all over the net with the recent ignorant decision by Omni Hotels to remove printed Yellow Pages/phone books from their guest rooms.

Here’s just a sampling of the junk they are spreading:

Richard Maxfield, senior vice president of operations for Omni Hotels: “ …Saying goodbye to phone books means Omni Hotels will preserve approximately 217,200 pounds of paper each year.   Our goal is to preserve more than 18,000 trees over the next decade. We feel good about the impact this initiative will have on the environment….”

Of course the reality is the reality is the Yellow Pages industry doesn’t knock down any trees for its paper. With publishers on average using about 40% recycled material (from the newspapers and magazines recycled curbside), and the other 60% comes from wood chips and waste products of the lumber industry. If you take a round tree and make square or rectangular lumber from it, you get plenty of chips and other waste. Those by-products make up the other 60% of the raw material needed. But why should those facts matter to Omni?

More jems: Omni estimated (somehow, someway) that it will save the following resources typically needed to produce the 60,000 phone books the hotels receive each year:

– 217 barrels of oil per year

– 760,200 gallons of water per year

– 445,260 kilowatts of energy per year

Where do they get these numbers from???? Why not just make them up from some other site you happen to find on the Internet. Crap. Pure crap.

The important part is that I am hearing from many of you in the industry who have joined this boycott to let Omni know this is bad decision. But we need more of you join in.

Or we can have more “James Scott”’s who commented at this one site that “…the most recent blog entry ((this site)), aims to boycott Omni hotels for this. I’m sure they’re shaking in their boots…”

Based on the comments I am getting, they should be. LETS BOYCOTT OMNI. NOW!!!!!

Internet Metering On Its Way

The anti-print Yellow Pages lobby has a new monster on the horizon – “Internet Metering” will be coming to your home soon. The concept is simple and socialistic in concept — those who use more bandwidth pay more per month for their Internet service.

Time Warner Cable who provides my cable and hi-speed Internet service is conducting an initial test in one Texas market. Meanwhile Comcast has said it would expand its strategy to slow down the volume of Web traffic by so-called “bandwidth hogs” at peak consumption times. AT&T said it too was considering consumption-based pricing last week: “Based on current trends, total bandwidth in the AT&T network will increase by four times over the next three years,” the company said.

The three companies claim that capping broadband use ensures fair Web access for all users, but the Times points out that the tactic “is a throwback to the days of dial-up service” and that “the experiments could have huge implications for the future of the Web,” particularly as consumers ramp up their consumption of bandwidth-sucking entertainment.

That FREE print Yellow Pages that arrives at your door step each year is looking a whole lot more valuable, isn’t it?