From completely off-the-grid guest rooms to creating affordable housing for local communities, these hotels are leading the way.
For generations, hotels have excelled and innovated in areas like cuisine and design. However, in the 21st century, that is no longer sufficient. More and more new hotels and hospitality brands are focusing on significant issues that are important to informed global citizens—like conservation, sustainability, education, inclusivity, and community. Many in this rapidly expanding category of hotels derive their very identity from their commitment to these singular causes. The result is a completely new blueprint for what a hotel can be, presenting us all with opportunities to become better, more responsible travelers.
Eco Pioneer
When it opens in 2024 on Norway’s Helgeland coastline, Six Senses Svart will become the world’s first energy-positive hotel. The 94-room property will harvest more solar energy than it needs to operate, making it entirely off-grid and self-sustaining, with its own waste and water management, recycling, and renewable infrastructure.
Paradigm Shifter
In the Hudson Valley, Moliving is innovating the hotel concept by stripping it down to a single room designed for high functionality and minimal impact. The brainchild of a team with backgrounds in luxury brands, Moliving cabins feature a central operation system, are totally off the grid, and offer travelers the most valued commodity—privacy.
Community Champion
Since 2009, when Lisa Harper opened Rancho Pescadero in Todos Santos, Mexico, the development has significantly expanded. To support hotel staff and the full-time community, this high-design resort has invested in 170 affordable homes, alongside a range of educational opportunities, and embraced a greener initiative by adding a solar farm for energy.
Zero-Impact Escape
Travelers with the expedition company Voygr do not sleep in conventional beds or hotels when exploring Kyrgyzstan’s mountains. Instead, they use simple, traditional yurts and snug sleeping bags that leave the terrain practically untouched, consequently helping travelers to their ultimate reward: unparalleled access to elusive snow leopards and more.
Steward of the Land
The designer safari camp Angama Amboseli, which will open in 2023 on a patch of Kenya’s Maasai Mara, is subleased from an organization that rents land from approximately 844 Maasai families. This relationship provides communities with reliable income and contributes to conserving the land, ensuring that it is not used for livestock grazing. As a result, this initiative enhances the transit corridors that wildlife need to thrive.
Local Showroom
Passalacqua, an 18th-century former villa on Lake Como, elevates local craftsmanship to extraordinary levels. Its 24 rooms have been meticulously restored and crafted by hundreds of Italian artisans, including metalsmiths for the staircase, glassblowers for the chandeliers, and leather workers for vintage-style steamer trunks. No corners are cut in creating this homage to Italian artistry.
The Responsible Retreat
In Samana, a luxurious region of the Dominican Republic where tourism has often been extractive, high-design Shamana aims to demonstrate how luxury resorts can be meaningfully regenerative. Through initiatives such as fishing programs, river cleanups, and community education, Shamana exemplifies responsible tourism.
