Along with the trend of green living, ecotourism is also favored by many domestic and international tourists. Green vacation, eco-holiday or Ecolodge is understood simply as traveling but still protecting the environment and maintaining the peaceful life of the local people. Ecolodge is clearly differentiated from the model of staying at hotel and resort through construction and operation. An Ecolodge must cover 4 basic elements: close to nature, environmental protection, culture, sustainable tourism.
Hoi An Eco Lodge and Spa (Quang Nam Province)
Close to nature
Accordingly, the Ecolodge-built tourist area must be separated from urban residential areas, giving priority to places with good terrain, high terrain, space in front of a wide field or river bank. Space Ecolodge is surrounded by natural environment, away from other artificial facilities. The architecture must be a whole to enhance the beauty of the Ecolodge, as well as complement the natural beauty, available harmony of the local landscape area.
This resort often prioritizes the use of natural materials, manual processing, but must ensure subtle elements, expressing the elegance of service standards. In interior and exterior decoration, it is necessary to combine and integrate daily life items and local cultural symbols.
Environmental Protection
Investors should make the most of environmentally friendly appliances, using clean energy such as solar energy, energy saving lamps and implementing the overall energy saving process from the investment phase to operate, fully understand the daily waste treatment process. Training on environmental protection activities for staff members as well as relatives in local communities such as cleaning, planting trees at Ecolodge and for the community, or investing in public properties to protect environmental protection... is also a necessary activity that ecolodge resorts should implement.
Honoring indigenous culture
This element is shown by trying to combine local dishes into the menu or organizing indigenous cultural events on the premises of Lodges such as: local cuisine, traditional cultural performances...
In addition, the uniform of the staff can also incorporate motifs or features in the indigenous people's costumes. Many Ecolodge areas also invest in building a native indigenous cultural space and cooperating with a number of local vocational institutions, supporting the sale of non-profit products of the people, to tourists in Ecolodge to buy and support. These craft facilities.
Sustainable Tourism
The Ecolodge zones need to use at least 90% of the local residents in the process of providing services to visitors, creating jobs and stable income for residents. At the same time, support the consumption of fresh farm produce grown in the area and carry out many meaningful activities for the community such as helping disadvantaged students, building clean water pipes for people in the village.
In addition, green eco-zones need to coordinate with tourists and state experts and agencies to raise awareness about environmental protection and cultural preservation at Ecolodge.
Currently in Viet Nam, there are some Ecolodge models attracting many tourists like Mai Chau Ecolodge (Mai Chau Town, Hoa Binh Province), Topas Ecolodge (Lao Cai Province), Hoi An Ecolodge (Quang Nam Province)...
Xuan Thang
