Canvas, sticks, & mud: Is this the future of sustainable hotels & resorts?

It appears to be much more com­mon in the 21st cen­tury than it was in the 20th for high-end lux­ury hotels and resorts to be delivered in the form of tents and huts and mud houses. So long as the res­ult is more sus­tain­able accom­mod­a­tion options across all price points, sus­tain­ab­il­ity advoc­ates should rejoice.

CB Ramku­mar, Board Mem­ber & India Coun­try Rep­res­ent­at­ive of the Glob­al Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Coun­cil (GSTC), mod­er­ated the ses­sion on altern­at­ive and innov­at­ive accom­mod­a­tion at the 2019 GSTC Asia-Pacific Sus­tain­able Tour­ism Con­fer­ence, Feb­ru­ary 28.

Join­ing him as pan­el­lists for the ses­sion were:

• Koko Tang, CEO, Yun­nan Vinet­ree Tour­ism Development
• John Roberts, Group Dir­ect­or of Sus­tain­ab­il­ity, Minor Hotels Group 
• Jose T Ramapuram, Exec­ut­ive Dir­ect­or, Evolve Back Resorts
• Daniel Rye of Can­opy Power 

Mr Ramku­mar raised a few issues to con­sider, including:

• Cli­mate change and res­ult­ant extreme weath­er events are a major busi­ness risk;
• Decar­boni­ing day-to-day oper­a­tions has become an imper­at­ive and makes busi­ness sense; and 
• There are oppor­tun­it­ies through green archi­tec­ture and build­ing mater­i­als to bake sus­tain­ab­il­ity into accom­mod­a­tion, espe­cially by adapt­ing tra­di­tion­al styles for con­tem­por­ary living.

As founder of Green Dreams for the Plan­et and Our Nat­ive Vil­lage, Mr Ramku­mar focuses on five pil­lars of sus­tain­ab­il­ity: archi­tec­ture, energy, water, waste, and the sup­ply chain, includ­ing for food.

His Our Nat­ive Vil­lage eco-resort near Ban­galore, India has “low embod­ied energy”, he said, because it has been con­struc­ted using sun-dried bricks of loc­al clay.

Luxury on legs

Ms Tang’s new Vinet­ree resort in Yun­nan province, China has popped up on stilts with­in a sens­it­ive nation­al park envir­on­ment — offer­ing lux­ury ten­ted accom­mod­a­tion linked by boardwalks. 

Vinet­ree has been care­ful to lim­it its impact on the ground, Ms Tang claimed. For example the under­side of the board­walks are fit­ted with all the cables and pipes needed to sup­ply power and plumb­ing to each tent.

With Sky­walk­er gib­bons and red pan­das in the area, Vinet­ree has imple­men­ted a wild­life policy for guests and staff that includes record­ing sight­ings to help researchers. 

Man­aging the cul­ture shock between poor rur­al loc­als and wealthy urb­an vis­it­ors was the biggest oper­a­tion­al chal­lenge, Ms Tang said.

Stepping back to move forward

Mr Ramapuram said sus­tain­ab­il­ity was embed­ded into Evolve Back­’s “core pur­pose” and branding. 

Thanks to an in-depth study of loc­a­tions, Mr Ramapuram claims that the land­scape, envir­on­ment, and loc­al cul­ture are all con­sidered in the design and devel­op­ment of each of his three Indi­an resorts. 

In one example, Evolve Back acquired farm land, refor­es­ted it with endem­ic spe­cies, and embed­ded loc­al vil­lage-style accom­mod­a­tion into the enhanced environment. 

Care­ful study has its advant­ages in oth­er areas, he said, includ­ing hir­ing prac­tices (60% loc­al); food sourcing (most of it is loc­al); cor­por­ate social respons­ib­il­ity pro­grams (schools); the exper­i­ences offered guests; and mar­ket­ing mes­sages that emphas­ise the unique­ness of each place.

Helping habitat pay its way

John Roberts told del­eg­ates that Cam­bod­ia was being rap­idly deforested. 

The gov­ern­ment issues con­ces­sions for undeveloped land with the con­di­tion that eco­nom­ic activ­ity must be gen­er­ated. As a res­ult, most con­ces­sion are cleared for agri­cul­ture, includ­ing all those sur­round­ing the 18,073-hectare (180 sq. km) tract Wild­life Alli­ance acquired in 2009. 

To ful­fill its oblig­a­tions to mon­et­ise the land while stay­ing true to its own mis­sion to safe­guard hab­it­at, Wild­life Alli­ance partnered with Minor Hotels Group and YAANA Ventures. 

The res­ult­ant low-pro­file low-impact Car­damom Ten­ted Camp, which opened in Novem­ber 2017, is help­ing hab­it­at pay its way. 

Wild­life is com­ing back and are increas­ingly vis­ible to guests, Mr Roberts said. And profits from the devel­op­ment go back to Wild­life Alli­ance’s rangers.

One of these panellists (was not like the others)

Daniel Rye has no tour­ism back­ground at all. And his top­ic was per­haps too spe­cif­ic, if not a little off-top­ic, for this par­tic­u­lar #GSTC2019Asia session. 

How­ever, being picked for the pan­el was not at all his fault. And it worked out well. His per­spect­ive was a refresh­ing change as close-of-busi­ness approached and thirst-quench­ing bever­ages and/or din­ner were being imagined. 

As a mar­keter of renew­able energy solu­tions to the hos­pit­al­ity sec­tor, Mr Rye delivered an intriguing insight into the psy­cho­lo­gic­al res­ist­ance to change he faces on a daily basis. 

The “Good Tour­ism” Blog has invited Mr Rye to con­trib­ute a “GT” Insight on this top­ic to give it the atten­tion it deserves. You too can con­trib­ute your insights as a “Good Tour­ism” prac­ti­tion­er, expert, aca­dem­i­cian, or sup­pli­er. Con­tact “GT”.

Fea­tured image: Sus­tain­able accom­mod­a­tion can take the form of lux­ury in can­vas, sticks, and mud. This image from Vinetree.