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Luxury Travel Gives Back - Marketwatch
It’s one of the sunnier trends in the high-end travel industry: More hotels and tour groups are giving back to the communities in which they operate. Among them are a safari lodge in Namibia investing in remote tribal communities, a five-star hotel in Mexico funding marine conservation in local waters, and a resort in the Peruvian Andes paying for the education of local children. Such altruistic ventures from high-end operators have cropped up alongside a surge in eco-conscious practices within the travel industry—from five-star hotels built with sustainable materials to the phasing out of disposable plastic shampoo bottles. Of course, such initiatives are good PR, but they have also sparked a kind of charity arms race in the industry.
“You’re seeing the travel community really beginning to bring pressure to bear on hotels and regions around issues of conservation,” says Betty Jo Currie, a veteran luxury-travel consultant with Currie Co. Travels in Atlanta. “When hotels hear from us that we’re sending clients who really care, they pay attention and things happen.”
It’s one of the sunnier trends in the high-end travel industry: More hotels and tour groups are giving back to the communities in which they operate. Among them are a safari lodge in Namibia investing in remote tribal communities, a five-star hotel in Mexico funding marine conservation in local waters, and a resort in the Peruvian Andes paying for the education of local children. Such altruistic ventures from high-end operators have cropped up alongside a surge in eco-conscious practices within the travel industry—from five-star hotels built with sustainable materials to the phasing out of disposable plastic shampoo bottles. Of course, such initiatives are good PR, but they have also sparked a kind of charity arms race in the industry.
“You’re seeing the travel community really beginning to bring pressure to bear on hotels and regions around issues of conservation,” says Betty Jo Currie, a veteran luxury-travel consultant with Currie Co. Travels in Atlanta. “When hotels hear from us that we’re sending clients who really care, they pay attention and things happen.”