NEW DELHI: If you are a bubble bath lover, then before you book your room in a star hotel just make sure they still have the bathtub, because many hotel companies are doing away with the bathtub in their new properties due to growing water crisis and guest apathy.Big chains like the Holiday Inn, Marriott, Lemon Tree, The Fern, Park Inn by Radisson and Best Western are setting the trend in their new star hotels, while many others, including The Leela Hotels, are considering the idea at least for standard rooms.“Bathtub usage has been on a decline in our hotels as most guests prefer a shower instead of bubble bath,” says Rajeev Menon, V-P at the Marriott, which runs Courtyard and JW Marriott. "We are redoing the bathrooms in some of our existing hotels to provide a better shower experience," he adds.A trend research conducted by the InterContinental Hotels Group, which operates chains like Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, has found that 85% of the guests prefer a quick shower instead of bathtubs in their rooms."For us, doing away with bathtubs not only reduces our water footprint by 11%, but also reduces the building cost by around 5%," says Douglas Martell, V-P (operations), South-West Asia, at InterContinental. One bathtub requires 250 litres of water compared to just 100 litres required for a shower.Doing away with the bathtub helps hotels save space as well. For instance, if a fivestar hotel is being constructed at a total cost of Rs 400 crore, the owner can reduce the overall costs by 5%, or about Rs 20 crore, by not installing bathtubs.The 200-room Park Inn by Radisson, which is being built in Gurgaon, for instance, will not have bathtubs, saving the hotel 16 sq ft of space per room. "And we save a whole lot of water too, which is becoming an ever precious resource," says KB Kachru, president, South Asia operations, at Carlson Hotels, which runs the Radisson brand in India.Carlson plans to open 49 new Park Inn by Radisson hotels in north India. Many of them will not have bathtubs. "But rooms in leisure destinations still need to have the bathtub," Kachru says. The JW Marriott and the Renaissance Convention Centre Hotel in Mumbai, which underwent a renovation recently, removed bathtubs from 75% of their rooms.At Lemon Tree Hotels, which runs Lemon Tree and Red Fox Hotels, 85% of the hotel inventory do not have bathtubs, says Aradhana Lal, vice-president, sustainability initiatives, at the hotel group.Best Western, which currently has 33 hotels operating in the country, decided to do away with bathtubs about four years back, says Sudhir Sinha, chief operating officer and president of the hotel chain. "This was part of our water conservation initiative," he says. Best Western has 11 new hotels under construction. Meluha The Fern, a fivestar Ecotel hotel chain owned and developed by Lake View Developers, has bathtubs only in their suites even in its five-star properties. The group has 15 hotels running and 10 more are under construction.Sunil Relia, vice-president for engineering at The Leela Hotels, which owns and operates a number of luxurious hotels across the country, says hardly any guest gets to use the bathtub these days. "We have been contemplating doing away with bathtubs for our standard rooms and since it’s a key element of a luxury hotel, there have been some reservations about the decision," he says. "But we see that consumer psyche is changing and not even 1% room nights have the opportunity to use a bathtub."The government of India’s classification for hotels makes it mandatory for all four-star plus category hotels in the country to have bathtub in at least a few rooms. India is expected to add 54,000 hotel rooms over the next three to four years, according to global hospitality consultant HVS. If all hotels decide not to install bathtubs, it would save them 1.35 crore litres of water. Estimates by HSBC Holdings show that industrial water demand will grow by 57% by 2025. Other reports suggest the country’s demand for clean water will grow 50% by 2030.India’s annual water demand in 2030 will be 1,500 cubic km (1 cubic km is 1 billion kilolitres) against the likely availability of 744 cubic km, a report of the ‘2030 Water Resources Group’, a consortium of private and social sector entities, has said.Meluha The Fern has found that by using showers instead of bathtubs, it would save around 5,310 kilolitre of water every year.Harinakkshi Nair, senior associate of HVS Sustainability Services that helps hotel owners and operators reduce their operating expenses, says all conscientious hotels have started taking baby steps towards water conservation. "But to make a difference, a giant leap needs to be taken," she says. "Replacing bathtubs with showers will make that difference."Water is becoming an important focus area for hotels. Some are installing local sewage treatment plants to recycle water from primary activities like cooking and bathing. "We re-use up to 100% of our daily used fresh water which is then used for gardening, toilet flush systems, air-conditioning cooling towers," says Raghuveer Singh, chief engineer of The Oberoi, Gurgaon.Accor Hotels, which runs brands like Ibis and Pullman, has made water conservation initiatives a part of its sustainable development programme called ‘Planet 21’. "Last year, we saved around Rs 56 lakh due to our water conservation practices in nine properties alone," says Darashbir Singh, general manager- engineering services at Accor Hotels.