Our cover for May features Hotel Verde Cape Town – ‘Africa’s Greenest Hotel’ – for a while anyway.
Because the hotel’s owner, Mario Delicio and his industrious team have just launched Verde Hotels – a hospitality solutions group that aims to establish ‘Greenest Hotels’ in countries throughout Africa, and abroad.
“I had never imagined that my families’ humble pursuit to own a green hotel would become the exceptionally caring and inventive establishment that Hotel Verde Cape Town has become. I hope that people will see all of our cumulative efforts and that they will be inspired to implement small changes in their lives and businesses too,” says Mario.
And the “small changes” that Mario eludes to are coined in the phrase ‘Thrivability’ – meaning the act of thriving and prospering without damaging or causing harm, and encompassing three core concepts: People, Profit and Planet.
Verde Hotel’s thrivability model provides sustainable hospitality solutions that meet LEED® certification criteria. The model incorporates responsible design, construction, project and operations management and training. As pioneers in green hospitality globally, Verde Hotels aims to provide socially conscious investors, developers and hoteliers, significantly reduced operating costs and increased profits by providing turnkey service offerings, focused on new commercial construction and retrofitting of existing buildings.
“We believe that thrivability is better suited to the financial and business success of green hospitality than sustainability alone. It is a way to ensure sustainable development while taking the prosperity of one’s business model into account,” says Samantha Annandale, General Manager of Hotel Verde.
Read more about ‘Thrivability in Green Hotel Development‘ on page 25, and our Property Review feature on Hotel Verde Cape Town on pages 26 to 27.
In fact, this edition of Tourism Tattler has quite a bit of ‘Greenery’ – from a ‘Check List for Eco-Conferencing Venue Selection‘ (pages 22 to 24), to tips on ‘Fostering a Sustainable Hospitality Industry‘ (page 28).
For Minister Gigaba’s (South African Department of Home Affairs) enlightenment, we review UNWTOs Visa Openness Report (page 16), which is in stark contrast to South Africa’s Visa Immigration Debacle (page 17).
In addition, we have our usual features, including tourist arrival and hotel stats, ACSA and Car Rental Data (page 12), Louis the Lawyer’s ‘Law & Contracts’ series (page 31) and some marketing tips.
Enjoy your reading!
Yours in Tourism,
Des Langkilde. [email protected]
