06 Dec 2023
Words
Tim Crooks Informer 108
What’s Cool In The Industry
Director of New Developments and Hotels Tim Crooks checks in to check out the hottest hotel experiences.
Svart Technology
Carbon neutral? So yesterday. This Nordic novelty aims to go one better. Six Senses Svart aspires to be the world’s first “energy positive” hotel. It will achieve this remarkable global first by generating more energy than it took to construct it and will take to operate it once it’s up and running. The plan is to use solar panels and geothermal wells to produce enough energy to be fully independent of the power grid within five years of opening, which is scheduled for 2024. The 94-room resort is Six Senses’ first opening in Scandinavia and is quite the splash, so to speak. The striking ring-shaped resort practically hovers over the Holandsfjorden fjord at the foot of the Svartisen glacier about halfway up Norway’s seaboard.
sixsenses.com/en/new-openings/svart
Elliot Nest
Located on a teeny tiny coral cay on the southernmost end of the Great Barrier Reef, the 43-key Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort took out one of the top ecotourism prizes at the 2022 Qantas Australian Tourism Awards, the peak awards for our local industry. The resort has also achieved Advanced Ecotourism Certification, Climate Action Leader Certification and Green Travel Leader status from Ecotourism Australia. Located about 80 km northeast of Bundaberg in a highly protected Green Zone, the reef and island boast an abundance of marine life and tropical birds — but no mobile phone reception. To reach this place of perfect disconnection you’ll need to catch a plane. Flights depart daily from Bundaberg, Hervey Bay/Fraser Coast, Brisbane and the Gold Coast … and leave your phone behind.
Jurassic Lodge
Australia’s greenest resort, at least according to the World Travel Awards, is Daintree Ecolodge which took out the top prize for Oceania’s Leading Green Hotel in 2022. The resort was also a finalist in the World’s Leading Green Hotel category. The World Travel Awards were established in 1993 by the World Travel and Tourism Council and touts itself as the “Oscars of the travel industry.” Daintree Ecolodge, about 90 minutes’ drive north of Cairns, offers 15 eco-friendly treehouses amid 30 acres of the world’s oldest rainforest. Daintree Ecolodge’s green credentials have been signed off by Ecotourism Australia. The ecolodge is no stranger to green gongs having taken out previous World Travel Awards in 2007, 2009 and 2012. The ecolodge dates from 1993, and the Daintree Rainforest only from 180 million years ago.
Tim Crooks, Director
0417 544 562
tim@resortbrokers.com.au
