Eco-friendly backpacking in Lausanne

Anne-Marie Elmiger welcomes guests to her innovative hotel swissinfo.ch

Backpackers relying on cheap accommodation need not avoid Switzerland as they explore Europe, especially if they respect the environment.

Staying the night at the Lausanne Guest House is easy on the pocketbook and the environment. Dormitory beds cost SFr26 ($15) a night and the hotel is the first in Switzerland to meet stringent ecological standards.

The hardest job of Anne-Marie Elmiger, who opened the backpacker hotel last August with her two brothers, is to convince guests not to open the windows.

A smart ventilation system saves energy by drawing fresh air in to the building while expelling the stale. It’s air conditioning that is 100 per cent environmentally friendly.

Remote control

Solar panels take care of nearly half the hot water requirements and high thermal insulation reduces further heat loss. Natural gas provides whatever heating is still needed. The entire system is remote-controlled by Lausanne’s public utilities.

The hotel is only a two-minute walk from Lausanne’s railway station, encouraging guests to travel to the city by train. And on top of all that, everything that can be recycled (besides the air) is.

“When we have time, we tell our guests how it works,” says Elmiger. “But when we have a dozen people waiting at the reception, we can’t tell everyone.

“If I see someone in the kitchen with a bottle, however, I tell them ‘see here, this container is for the glass, this is for the paper’, and they say ‘oh really, we don’t do that [recycle] in our country’.”

She admits that most guests come because of the low price and the reputation the hotel has already gained for cleanliness.

“I think [the ecological aspect] is more interesting for architects,” she says. “It is important for us here in Lausanne, but it doesn’t mean much to foreigners. Maybe it’s too early – too new. The ecological standards have only attracted about a dozen people.”

But the hotel has already become the place to stay in Lausanne for budget travellers, even though the guesthouse is still in its first year of operation.

Pollen free

It’s a non-smoking hotel and guests have a choice among dormitory, single or double room accommodation. The pollen-free rooms are sparsely furnished but spacious and comfortable.

Most have wonderful views of Lake Geneva and the French Alps. And the excellent insulation lets in surprisingly little of the noise or vibration from the trains rumbling past the back of the building.

A kitchen remains open 24 hours a day, Internet terminals occupy a corner and comfortable sofas and subdued lighting give a laid back atmosphere to the lounge.

Elmiger and her brothers are among a new breed of entrepreneurs who have carved out an important niche in the Swiss hotel industry by offering reasonably priced and innovative accommodation.

Many, including the Lausanne Guest House, belong to the Swiss Backpackers Association.

To be a member, a hotel must be close to the railway station, provide kitchen facilities and lockers and dormitory beds cannot cost more than SFr30 a night.

Hostels keep pace

There are backpacker hotels in most Swiss cities and main tourist resorts, including Interlaken, Lucerne and Zermatt. Some are found in heritage buildings, others make their own beer and the smallest (ten beds) is nestled at the edge of a forest in a sleepy mountain village in the southern canton of Ticino.

Switzerland’s official youth hostels have managed to keep pace with the competition while remaining true to their non-profit roots. Gone are the days of cramped dormitory-only rooms, afternoon lockouts and curfews, but not affordability.

Most hostels now offer rooms of various sizes and comfort to suit all budgets and they go out of their way to adapt to the local conditions.

Member hostels in mountain resorts rent sporting equipment and, in winter, provide special ski packages. City hostels keep their receptions open longer and offer Laundromat services. The emphasis, as elsewhere in Switzerland, is on cleanliness.

by Dale Bechtel