A decade of history, a half-century of service: Five of the hotel's staff have been with The Observatory since its opening in 2004.They are Karen Burns, Jayne Langens, Tracey Beresford, Jenelle Adair and Jenna Gaul

BALANCING the interests of the environment with the demands of operating a financially sound enterprise has won Port Macquarie's Observatory Hotel national recognition in the 2014 Australian Business Awards.

The Town Beach hotel has been named an ABA100 Winner for Sustainability in the awards announced on July 30. The award is the highest honour achieved and the latest in a series of business and tourism industry association acknowledgements of the hotel's excellence in green initiatives and environmental sustainability.

The Observatory, formally known as Southern Cross Resorts, was doubly honoured by the judges, also awarded a 2014 ABA100 Winner for Service Excellence. This year's dual recognitions, given on the hotel's 10th anniversary, reflect twin awards given by other tourism and industry bodies in 2009 in the Observatory's fifth year of operation, also for sustainability and service excellence.

The Observatory is in notable company, with prominent names also on the 2014 Australian winners list including Optus, NRMA, Lend Lease, Leighton and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Hotel directors Chris and Trish Denny see the honours as an endorsement of The Observatory's pursuit of a quality experience for its guests, and assurance that standards implemented by the hotel in earlier years are maintained and continually improved.

"Awards by peer groups in business and tourism associations are an important means for us of benchmarking our performance against national standards of excellence," Mr Denny said. "Strict evaluation criteria mean enterprises that are highly marked can be confident the rigour of the process ensures their acknowledgement is for genuine achievement.

"We particularly welcome these awards as a valued recognition of our loyal staff, a number of them celebrating their 10th anniversary with us, along with the hotel's own 10th anniversary this month.

"Importantly, the two awards are complementary: we feel simultaneous awards for both Sustainability and Service Excellence demonstrate that the competing imperatives of people and the planet, and profit, can coexist and thrive."

The Observatory has implemented a series of environmental initiatives every year since its establishment in 2004. Even as the hotel was being built, the Dennys retained a University of New England archaeologist to catalogue convict-era relics uncovered on the construction site. The heritage items are now displayed in the hotel's foyer.

In its most recent innovation more than 200 solar panels were installed one year ago on the hotel's rooftop. In the past 12 months electricity generated by the panels has entirely supported the energy usage of 100 of the hotel's guests every week.

The July announcement of The Observatory's two ABA wins was closely followed by news it has also been named a finalist for its environmental program in this year's Hotel Management awards for the Australia-New Zealand and Asia-Pacific accommodation industry, being presented in Sydney early next month.

Source:  Port Macquarie News - 4th August 2014