NOT-SO-SECRET GARDEN
GLOBAL UPDATE what ’ s hot
DUMP BECOMES FARM
TRENDY TRUCK STOP
Los Angeles is known for its food truck craze , and the JW Marriott Los Angeles L . A . Live is helping groups and conventions join in the fun . Since last December , the hotel has offered a Gourmet Food Truck Lunch as an alternative to the traditional convention luncheon .
The hotel ’ s events team works with meeting planners to determine which trucks to feature and how many items to include per truck menu based on the number of
The 9,000-sq-ft
( 844-sq-m ) vertical garden at Mercure Madrid Santo Domingo earned a Guinness World Record . attendees . Guests order from individually posted menus just as they would on the street and then sit at picnictable style seating provided by the hotel .
Although the hotel ’ s director of events first established the partnerships with a handful of trucks — which have included the Kogi BBQ Truck , Lobsta Truck and Baby ’ s Badass Burgers — initial events were so popular that one of the trucks then took the lead in coordinating
NOT-SO-SECRET GARDEN
In just a little more than two years , Mercure Madrid Santo Domingo Hotel has created a vertical garden measuring just over 9,000 sq ft ( 844 sq m ), earning it a Guinness World Record .
Seventy of the hotel ’ s 200 guestrooms overlook the garden , which features a 66-ft ( 20-m ) waterfall , trees that measure more than 32 ft ( 10 m ) high and
Hansar Samui ’ s organic garden
Baby ’ s Badass Burgers is has grown several among popular food trucks varieties of lettuce . that have participated in the Gourmet Food Truck Lunch . Hansar Samui in Koh Samui ,
Thailand , has converted 1.2 acres ( 0.5 hectares ) of land adjacent to the hotel that had previously been used as a dumping ground into an organic on the truck side , streamlining the process . garden and fish farm . The garden has grown herbs
The hotel notes the offering appeals especially to including rosemary , thyme and Italian basil as well as fruits and groups meeting for at least vegetables such as Chinese kale , three days , as they often papaya and seedless yellow watermelon . Dried leaves and refuse are like to mix up their food choices . “ The cost to host a used for compost , and intercropping — by which one plant creates truck lunch is roughly the same per person as serving a buffet-style meal in natural enzymes that can kill disease or bugs on another plant — helps one of our meeting rooms ,” protect the harvest without chemicals . Each department in the hotel adds Director of Sales and Marketing Bill Buckley . “ So has its own plot in the garden , and it ’ s a very viable option for there will be a friendly competition most planners .” each season for which provides the best results .
Two large ponds on the land have been converted to fish farms ,
and fish will be harvested every flowers that vary with the three months .
seasons . Guests also can Maintenance costs for the project , view the garden from the begun in June , are fairly low thus hotel ’ s rooftop swimming far , with expenses including initial
pool as well as its “ Nature ” seed costs of 3,000 baht ( US $ 95 ) meeting room . and monthly fish food costs of Perhaps most important , 700 baht ( US $ 22 ).
the cost of maintaining Future plans include starting a the garden is minimal , hydroponic berry farm as well as since watering occurs via selling organic produce to other
a trickle irrigation system hotels in the area and using the proceeds for donations to local temples using treated wastewater from up to 50 guestrooms . and schools .
12 HOTELS September 2012 www . hotelsmag . com