Having said all that, however, there are hotels out there that have a genuine and demonstrable commitment to the environment.

Firstly, Tiamo in the Bahamas. This little resort is miles from anywhere, powered exclusively by eco-electricity (it has the largest solar field in Central/South America), eschews TV, phones and the ilk, produces its own food, and uses water and baking soda as its cleaning products.

http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/caribbean-hotels/bahamas-hotels/tiamo-resort/

And secondly, Nihiwatu on the Indonesian island of Sumba, is similarly isolated, and about as back-to-nature as you can get. It’s built entirely from locally sourced materials, and staff are strongly involved in conserving the local island forests.

http://www.mrandmrssmith.com/luxury-hotels/indonesia-hotels/sumba-hotels/nihiwatu

These are two of the most sincerely green hotels we have found, but I anticipate that there’ll be more and more as time goes on. Of course, there’s always the issue of the effects of air travel to discuss…

Tamara (online director) Mr & Mrs Smith

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It’s good to read and see examples where a hotel is really environmentally friendly, rather tha a hotel which uses the environment as it’s marketing tactic when it clearly isn’t.

@ Jess

I would have a read of the comments here and also visit the links in the comments above to get some examples.

p.s. I had to delete your web address from the blog post

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This blog was interesting reading and it gave me the idea to ask for your recommendations around “eco-friendly”, “green”, “responsible tourism” etc.

We’re about to renovate/build a luxury floating hotel (houseboat / boatel) on the Chobe River, Namibia/Botswana. Since we have 100% control over the construction the aim is to make sure that we build it as environmental friendly as possible with the long-term usage in mind all the way.

Let me know your thoughts around what you concider being eco-friendly. Do you have resources online that I can take a look at as well, please let me know. It can definitely spark an interesting discussion…

Thank you in advance.
- Tess

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She used all organic materials in building it, they use solar power, have a connected organic restaurant and hamman. She was an organic farmer for many years and is working with the community in the area in supporting their organic farms.

http://www.soultravelers3.com/2007/04/lalla-mira-hamm.html#more

I read reviews like this that convinced me to try it:

http://www.naturallymorocco.co.uk/Brochures/Brochure_Essaouira_Lalla_Mira_Eco_Hotel.php?pid=210

It was not the prettiest place that we stayed at in Morocco, but it was lovely.

I would certainly support more lovely places that did this kind of thing.

We also stayed at The Post Ranch in which was one of the nicest places we ever stayed. It is hard to say how green it was, but it was definitely green and quite spectacular and is very popular:

http://www.postranchinn.com/

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