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Feel-Good Caribbean
by Christian Parenti
Published July 2007
Think traveling responsibly means forgoing creature comforts? Think again. Christian Parenti surveys the latest crop of visionary resorts in the Bahamas, Dominica, and Jamaica and discovers delicious food, attentive service, and true luxury. Welcome to the Caribbean with a conscience.
Plus: Our guide to 20 hideaways that soothe the senses and ease the mind
Clean energy: Tiamo, on Andros Island in the Bahamas, uses passive solar and wind energy whenever possilble—to dry bed linens, for example.
Sustainable tourism is still a relatively nascent business in the Caribbean. In Costa Rica, Mexico, and Ecuador, governments have worked to build uniform standards, training programs, and publicity. Although the Caribbean's economy is increasingly unified, its governance is politically fragmented, with twenty-four independent states and territories. Caribbean governments tend to pay lip service to sustainable tourism while in reality there is little money to support it.
"Too often, the only economic measure they care about is the number of arrivals. It is assumed that the more arrivals an island has, the more economic benefits it accrues," said Deirdre Shurland, the director of the Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism, a business group formed a decade ago by concerned hoteliers to educate both governments and businesses about sustainable tourism. "We need to develop consistent regionwide benchmarks to measure environmental impact as well as more complex economic measures that calculate how much food is locally sourced, how much water is used, how much waste is recycled. Hotels can't do that all by themselves."
But in lieu of consistent regional planning, I found a number of flagship sustainable hotels that are leading the way. Each of them fits into its environment and economy differently: Some emphasize the environmental aspect, while others emphasize the social. All offer not only sustainability but truly spectacular, luxurious getaways.
for rest of article click:
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/...r=2&print=true
by Christian Parenti
Published July 2007
Think traveling responsibly means forgoing creature comforts? Think again. Christian Parenti surveys the latest crop of visionary resorts in the Bahamas, Dominica, and Jamaica and discovers delicious food, attentive service, and true luxury. Welcome to the Caribbean with a conscience.
Plus: Our guide to 20 hideaways that soothe the senses and ease the mind
Clean energy: Tiamo, on Andros Island in the Bahamas, uses passive solar and wind energy whenever possilble—to dry bed linens, for example.Sustainable tourism is still a relatively nascent business in the Caribbean. In Costa Rica, Mexico, and Ecuador, governments have worked to build uniform standards, training programs, and publicity. Although the Caribbean's economy is increasingly unified, its governance is politically fragmented, with twenty-four independent states and territories. Caribbean governments tend to pay lip service to sustainable tourism while in reality there is little money to support it.
"Too often, the only economic measure they care about is the number of arrivals. It is assumed that the more arrivals an island has, the more economic benefits it accrues," said Deirdre Shurland, the director of the Caribbean Alliance for Sustainable Tourism, a business group formed a decade ago by concerned hoteliers to educate both governments and businesses about sustainable tourism. "We need to develop consistent regionwide benchmarks to measure environmental impact as well as more complex economic measures that calculate how much food is locally sourced, how much water is used, how much waste is recycled. Hotels can't do that all by themselves."
But in lieu of consistent regional planning, I found a number of flagship sustainable hotels that are leading the way. Each of them fits into its environment and economy differently: Some emphasize the environmental aspect, while others emphasize the social. All offer not only sustainability but truly spectacular, luxurious getaways.
for rest of article click:
http://www.concierge.com/cntraveler/...r=2&print=true