Sustainable Tourism and Responsible Travel

What is sustainable tourism?

In the past decade people started to acknowledge that hotels are not in all aspects a blessing for the local population and eco process. More recently, they also started to understand what impact travelling has on the ecological systems and global warming. Where ECO tourism and sustainable tourism have much in common, sustainable tourism also considers the social impact on the area where the facility settles down. But, historically there's lots of ECO resorts with excellent social programs who could consider changing tags.

In most cases sustainable hotels and resorts concentrate on how they impact the local community in particular and the country in general. They are called sustainable hotels/resorts/lodges or sustainable destinations if there's more of them in an area or country. Add the impact of the travel to the location and they have sustainable tourism.

Has sustainable tourism only a local impact?

Is green energy a viable option for hotels?

In most Western countries six can chose to buy green energy. That option is not available in the Caribbean. Consequently the only way is to generate electricity. While there's lots of forms of green energy ( refer to: my editorial Green Energy Options in the Caribbean) they will only discuss wind and solar power as these are the most obvious ones.

Wind Energy

Paradise Bay installed a 80 kW windmill with an expected yearly yield of 180,000 kWh. It is the first utility-grade windmill installed in Caricom and they could not find any resort that already installed a windmill, although there's several with designs and six under construction. With an estimated yearly power use of 120,000 kWh the resort will be better than zero carbon, one times the connection to the mains is realized, as the remainder of the energy is sold to the local electricity company.

A company from the Netherlands (www.mainwind.nl) recognized this gap and delivers solutions in the form of used mid-range windmills (250-750 kW) that come from upgraded wind parks. The require for upgrading is obvious; it is most easy to increase capacity to the now current technology (2 - 3MW) at already existing wind parks. The smaller windmills are taking down, revised (reconditioned) and are sold with an as-new warranty and optionally with a 15 year all-inclusive maintenance contract.

In our case it was feasible to place a windmill because of the direct position towards the wind, while the windmill could be placed in a backward location, non-intrusive for the guests. They only get positive reactions about the windmill.

Solar Energy

The cost per kWh is competitive with larger windmills, typically between 7-9 US$ cents; 5-6 times lower than the mains

Solar panels installed at hotels often supply a small part of the total energy needs and is then not much over symbolic. But guests appreciate these efforts, so it's a marketing value. To supply a substantial part of the hotel's energy needs is usually not feasible because of the giant amount of panels needed.

The price of photo-voltaic cells has come down substantially as production increased because of subsidies in the past decennia. In the Caribbean they have now reached the point where the solar cost gets close to the electricity company's charge. This is in contrast to Western hemispheres where the cost of energy is lower and the sun is less strong.

What can hotels do to save energy?

Solar water heaters are an excellent way to avoid using energy and the payback time is 1 - 4 year depending on the setup. As the water use by guests differs substantially it is much more economic to put a number of solar heaters in parallel. When there's cloudy or rainy days the yield will be much lower. Six approach is to dimension worst case (rain). Another way is to feed the solar heated water in the "cold" input of the electrical heater

As the waste heat will produce more water than your guests will ever use, it is still important to take energy efficient air conditioners. Generally, the energy use has been considered for bigger central systems, but the massive savings are reached with the split process air conditioners on a per room base, which is customary in the Caribbean. Typical savings are 30-40% so the payback time is short.

Use air conditioners with heat recovery units, which convert the heat loss in to hot water. On most air conditioners this can also be installed afterwards and they can make use of traditional (electrical) water heaters which are well isolated. The installation can be performed by nice air conditioning technicians. The savings will be substantial and justifiable in all cases they have seen. The reason why this is not a mainstream issue yet has to do with the much lower energy cost in the US and Europe and the fast growth of energy cost. Solutions always lag behind the reality.

When the guests are not in the room you don't require to keep the air conditioning jogging. The traditional solution is the room key switch. When the guest leaves and takes out the key, the air conditioning switches off -or with some advanced central systems- goes to a higher temperature.
Another strong impact is door switches. When the balcony door is opened you don't require the compressor to run. Perfectionists also switch off the air conditioner when the windows are open, but this is not always appreciated by the guests.

Refrigeration is another area where massive savings can be made, with the smaller units such as in the guest rooms. Savings run in the 30-40% range. Availability of energy conserving professional coolers and freezers is still limited.

Energy saving lamps is the most widely known form of saving energy and money and most hotels already use them. There's new developments underway that will save even more, so it is important to keep your eyes open before you order bulbs.

Use high efficiency dish washers and washing machines with hot water connections; this has a giant impact. Most dish washing machines you have installed already have the ability to work with hot water instead of chilled water (that is heated by the electrical element). So it is a matter of changing the installation which is an easy job. for washing machines you will require to install a thermostatic valve that mixes chilled water in to the hot water to get the desired temperature.

Why would a Caribbean hotel require to be sustainable?

Travelers are getting more and more aware of global warming and other environmental threats. Surveys have shown that an aggressively growing group of travelers considers sustainable policies and it is not uncommon anymore that directories ask for the environmental practices.
So, besides saving by taking clever choices it is and a marketing advantage.

CARBON FREE VACATION

The voices to limit long haul holiday travel are getting stronger

The guest's holiday is therefore guaranteed carbon neutral. The new carbon offset program, called Zero Carbon Travel, plants trees in Ethiopia which has additional social and ecological benefits. Due to aggressive deforestation in Ethiopia only 3% of the forest is still there. In a country where the majority of the poor population depends on firewood for their dinner this means that lots of have to walk for miles to find twigs to cook. Deforested areas are also more likely subject to erosion, with significant medium and long term negative effects.

Paradise Bay will implement a carbon offset program where all flights by guests will be offset by carbon credits purchased by the resort, on an automatic basis, in addition to the stay, local transport and activities which is already carbon free because of the windmill that supplies energy back to the electricity net.

All hotels and resorts will be able to use this efficient and therewith affordable plan to offer their guests a Carbon Free Stay (only compensate the emission caused by the stay) or go all the way and offer guests a Carbon Free Holiday, which includes compensation of flights.

For a typical transatlantic flight 40 trees are planted, much over most other carbon offset programs that do not consider the re-emission of carbon dioxide after the lifetime of the tree and use optimistic lifetimes for the trees. In the unregulated carbon offset sector it happens that 5-6 times less trees are planted for the same trip at a cost 2-3 times higher. Efficiency and overhead are the issues. Zero Carbon Travel was designed to be transparent, accountable and efficient.

in the Caribbean they should indeed be concerned, because long haul travel is part of our existence.

Hotels can select to offer a Carbon Free Stay and Holiday as an option or as included in the price. Either way it will have a positive impact on picture and is therewith a marketing/PR tool. The cost of compensating six night is always less than US$ 0.70 per night, while compensating the flight runs in the 10-20 $ range. With the new Zero Carbon Travel initiative a hotel can receive a commission on the compensation of the flight. When a check in agent tells the guest that the hotel paid for a Carbon Free Stay, the right atmosphere has been created to ask the guest to pay a small amount to offset the carbon emission of their flight.

Other aspects of sustainable travel include wastewater treatment, organic produce, meat and cleaning materials, social programs and so on. Again, it needs to be emphasized that more and more travelers are getting more and more aware and prefer (and require to pay more for) responsible hotels. The spiral growth of organizations such as responsibletravel.com (UK) and sustainable travel international (US) confirms the trend.