When you’re a lover of roads and a worshipper of mother earth, making conscious travel choices comes easy to you. You’re thoughtful of your investments – money or time and are okay with being accountable for your choices. As a green traveller, I see this more as an approach than a lesson that needs to be preached and practised but unfortunately, with unaware tourism choices, we see a large majority of tourists end up picking negative or rather, inconsiderate options.
To understand sustainability in tourism better, I often flip the coin and turn my head to the industry practices. As an advocate of sustainable tourism, I closely work with hotels, carrying dialogues around green practices they adopt in their daily functioning. And a problem I often come across is how hotels skip to integrate sustainability at the very beginning of their commencement, only to struggle later.
On my recent visit to Mynd Hotels, I was happy to see this trend being changed.
Sustainability at the forefront
Mynd Hotels in Callao Salvaje in Tenerife is an example of the hospitality industry’s changing landscape. It keeps sustainability at the forefront of core functioning without disturbing the experience of luxury and comfort. By incorporating this module at the very start of operations, the brand sets an example with a lead. In this article, I highlight 3 practice areas that stand out for me and account for large contributions in the broad subject of sustainability.
If you are an emerging hotel, this 3 points approach can be your start point to embrace ecotourism.
Supply Chain and Partnerships
With 80 percent of the supply chain consisting of local partners and products, Mynd hotels contribute to the local upliftment of Tenerife – socially and economically. Partnering with locals businesses not only increases the product or service visibility leading to increased chances of sales for these businesses but also, flows the economy within the island. Right from the food ingredients needed in the kitchen, to the toiletries offered to the guests, they are all locally sourced.
Goes without saying, these locally sourced products are also green.
- Settling for a soap produced in the neighbourhood wrapped in plastic packaging would just negate the point.
- Sourcing products locally often comes with greater benefits like lower transportation and maintenance costs, and longer shelf life.
REDUCE, REUSE, REFRESH, REVIVE
One bold step taken by Mynd Hotels is the complete elimination of plastic bottles throughout the property. This practice encourages guests to carry their own water bottles from home or refill the one bought. A loud and clear message like this one communicates brand intention and also helps establish a community that aligns with your intentions and values.
Digging deep into exploring the concept of all Rs is limitless and often requires innovation. Are you ready to be bold and innovative?
Leveraging geographical, social and environmental factors
Located in south Tenerife – an island blessed with sunshine, Mynd hotels have solar panels that generate electricity for the hotel, leading to increased self sufficiency plus lower electricity costs. Similarly, given the convenience of smooth streets around the property, the hotel offers e-bikes for guests to hire, which takes away a major chunk of the transportation footprint generated on vacations, plus is such a cool way to see the region!
Where’s your hotel located? Is it windy there? Can you leverage on wind energy? Or tidal energy? Or start with something small. Like recycling and serving purified water from the river that flows near you instead of buying it? Or joining hands with a local NGO that takes your leftover food everyday, feeding the less privileged?
So like Mynd hotels, are you ready to embrace sustainability from the day one of operations too?
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MYND Hotel Adeje
trendy, eco-friendly hotel in the South of Tenerife
Thank you
Thank you to everyone involved in this Canary Green project where our aim is to help promote sustainable tourism in the Canary Islands. A special thank to Mynd hotels for making my stay in Tenerife wonderful.
Do you want us to find you more sustainable choices? Please support us and donate today.
- John Beckley; Founder of Canary Green non profit
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