In California's desert, resorts alter lush 'oasis' look during drought

PALM SPRINGS, Calif. —For decades, tourists have been coming to Southern California's Coachella Valley, drawn by spectacular mountain vistas, great weather and lush landscapes.

Those landscapes have been, for the most part, man-made — an artificial oasis in a land of desert. And the valley's biggest resorts have handily played that card, seeding acres of lawn and fairways amid sparkling swimming pools.

As California enters a fourth year of drought and state and local water officials unveil a series of conservation dictates, at least some hotels in the valley — big and small — have begun launching water conservation measures.

The Westin Mission Hills Golf Resort and Spa in Rancho Mirage, Calif. has a goal of trimming its water use by about 30%, said Randy Zupanski, general manager for the 512-room resort stretching across 360 acres.

Those savings will largely come from cutting back on outdoor irrigation.

"What we did is we strategically walked the property to pick which areas can be done without visual impact," he explained.

"The savings on the hotel properties is anywhere from 30% to 50%, depending on their size and current type of planting and irrigation," said Rob Parker, a landscape architect with RGA Landscape Architects in Palm Desert. Some of the firm's biggest projects in the past few years have been converting lush water-guzzling lawns to drought-tolerant desert-scape.

How much water a hotel uses — and subsequently saves due to conservation efforts — is not an easy statistic to pin down. These are private enterprises and water agencies do not generally make customer usage public. Also, large hotels may have several accounts assigned to different uses like indoor, outdoor or even golf courses. And still other hotels rely on their own private wells for irrigation, or use recycled or Colorado River water.

The Coachella Valley Water District, which serves a significant swath of the valley beyond the San Bernardino mountains east of Los Angeles, has put in place required cutbacks in water consumption for its customers.

The agency is requiring that its customers reduce water usage 36% below each customer's "water budget," an individualized amount based on the number of people in the home (for residential customers), lot size and daily weather, or face penalty fees. To incentivize conservation, CVWD introduced its tiered-pricing structure in 2009.

"We're not asking our customers to necessarily reduce water use. What we're saying is, 'All of you should be 36% below your budget,'" said Heather Engel, a spokeswoman for CVWD.

Some 55% of customers have already reached their 36%-below-budget requirement.

As for the rest, many are commercial customers such as hotels, which make up 4% of the CVWD customer base.

The Desert Water Agency, which serves hotels in Palm Springs, has responded to the drought by limiting outdoor watering and banning wasteful water uses, including hosing down driveways and parking lots.

Hotels are held to this same standard.

"We are attempting to get a community-wide 36% by implementing the rules. If everyone follows the rules, we will hit 36% without penalizing anyone," DWA spokeswoman Katie Ruark said.

Hotels are also asking guests to chip in and help the valley cut its water use. For example, guests are asked to opt to not have towels and linens washed daily. Hotel restaurants are only serving water when someone asks for it.

$5 VOUCHER

At the Westin Mission Hills hotel, guests can participate in the "Green Choice" program where they are given a $5 voucher for use in hotel restaurants each day they decline housekeeping. The day of departure is the exception.

"This is a subject of debate by hoteliers," said Tim Ellis, chair of the board of directors for Greater Palm Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau, remarking on the drought and how hotels are responding. "We have worked closely with DWA even before there was the crisis. The major consumption of water is done by guests, which can be difficult to control. However, hotels have changed out toilets to low-flow, and have changed out heads in showers."

Cutting back on water use may appear to be easier for the big resorts, which can see significant savings through improved and reduced irrigation. For example, the Westin Mission Hills is letting its "rough" areas on the golf course go brown. This accounts for about 20% of the golf course.

However, water consumption at small hotels is almost entirely driven by guest activity. The Del Marcos Hotel, a 16-room boutique in Palm Springs, removed turf from the courtyard and pool area in August and plans to remove the front lawn next, said Lars Viklund, owner of the Del Marcos.

The more intangible question is how visitors will react to a Coachella Valley that is shifting back to the desert? Will travelers recoil at the site of cacti in place of velvety Bermuda grass?

"While your region may elect to 'go brown,' you do realize that the primary draw of the valley for tourism is specifically its lushness and surrealism amid the arid desert, right?" wrote Chris Douglas, of Minneapolis, in an email. "There are many dusty cities and towns throughout the Southwest, but most people don't travel to them and spend money on vacations or for a conventions."

PERSONAL 'OASIS'

Hotel guests often are quick to notice a broken sprinkler head or water washing down a gutter, said Zupanski at the Westin.

"More and more, we're seeing comments," he explained. "Like if they see water on the concrete, they're mentioning it to us. If they see the fountains running during the day, they're asking, 'how come?' Yeah, there's a lot of very conscientious customers out there that are paying a lot of attention."

The changes — whether dry fountains or brown roughs on golf courses — are, for the most part, subtle. And the "oasis" as a concept for the region's marketing strategy should not only be viewed as opulence grown by water, but a place to find "your personal oasis," said Scott White, president and CEO for the Greater Palm Springs CVB.

"What do you like to do to find your oasis?" White remarked. "Our campaign is about finding your 'personal' oasis."

Skip Descant is The Desert Sun's tourism reporter. He can be reached at Skip.Descant@DesertSun.com and on Twitter @TDSskip