Park Inn, a 4 star hotel located minutes away from Heathrow, has successfully encouraged a 10% reduction in car use amongst its staff, helping contribute to a greener local environment while improving the health and wellbeing of employees.

'We have a strong commitment to promoting sustainable travel and encourage our employees to make better travel choices when travelling to work', explains Park Inn's Human Resources Manager Caroline Lowe.
Park Inn has seen these impressive results through support from the Enterprise - A New Way to Work scheme from Transport for London, a free workplace travel plan support package designed to save organisations time and money.

An expert travel advisor from WESTTRANS (who deliver Enterprise in West London) worked with Park Inn to gain an understanding of the travel needs of their organisation and produced a tailor made travel plan for the site. Caroline found this support invaluable, 'With help from Enterprise the travel plan process proved straightforward, with minimal staff time required. As the Enterprise advisor had expert knowledge of the different initiatives available, we were able to come up with a set of low cost, easy to implement actions that have really delivered for Park Inn and contributed to our wider business goals.'

'We are accredited with a SILVER award for environmental practice by Green Tourism for Business and our workplace travel plan is part of an overall strategy towards our commitment to Responsible Business practices,' explains Caroline.

Alongside the 10% reduction in car use, over half of Park Inn's staff use sustainable transport for their commute, 'Through Enterprise, we were supplied with a range of free practical tools to give out to staff,' says Caroline, 'We were able to distribute reflective slap wraps, water bottles, rucksacks and cycle repair kits.' Park Inn has also encouraged cycling via improved facilities with 10 new bike racks supplied for free through Enterprise's Take a Stand offering.

Staff involvement in the travel plan has been key to Park Inn's success. 'The travel plan is overseen by our Green Team, a group of staff who work to meet our range of environmental and social goals. We also try to keep initiatives 'fresh' - we're planning a cycling event in September in conjunction with another Enterprise company, Sheraton Heathrow,' enthuses Caroline, 'There'll be cycle training and cycle maintenance available for staff.'

As the first hotel in Heathrow to gain Silver accreditation with the Green Tourism Scheme, Park Inn plans to continue leading the way, 'We're working towards achieving the Gold Green Tourism Award in 2009', explains
Caroline, and increasing use of another sustainable transport mode is also on the agenda - car sharing (also known as car pooling). 'The number of staff informally car sharing has doubled in the last year,' says Caroline, 'we're keen to support them and encourage other car drivers to give it a go.'

Park Inn saw the wider opportunities within the travel plan explains Caroline, 'It was important to us that our travel plan had an inclusive approach, so we also promote a wide range of travel options for our hotel guests and clients - including a 25% discount on the Heathrow Express. Through the match funding available with Enterprise, we're creating travel information pamphlets to promote the local bus, walking and cycling routes to our site for both staff and guests,' showing that Park Inn's sustainable travel philosophy extends beyond its site, working to improve the environment of the local area as well.