1 room = 1 tree only with LE
Luxury Explorer launches innovative responsible travel initiative
From today, Monday November 13th 2006, for every hotel room night booked through Luxury Explorer, 'The World Atlas of Luxury Travel', Luxury Explorer will plant a tree in one of its own woods or forests.
Each tree will bear the customer's name and Luxury Explorer will even arrange for customers to visit 'their' trees.
Why?
Every business must now act responsibly with regard to the environment. In this context, travel is a particularly emotive and contentious subject, so Luxury Explorer wants to provide a simple and effective way of offsetting some of the environmental impact of its customers' 'luxe-trotting'.
Luxury Explorer will plant a tree for every room night booked through its portal www.luxuryexplorer.com and if flights are booked using LE's 'First Class' flights service, the carbon offset for the journey will be calculated and the appropriate number of trees planted in one of its own designated woods.
Luxury Explorer will also plant trees to offset its own carbon footprint, including all travel relating to reviewing and selecting hotel partners around the World.
How?
The idea is simple: 1 room = 1 tree. But Luxury Explorer is not content to simply 'trade' the carbon offset to some unknown third party.
Luxury Explorer's founder and Chairman, Peter Matthews explains "We want to know that the trees we donate are actually planted and won't be bulldozed after a year or two. And when some of them are, necessarily, felled that the timber is put to good use. So we've decided to plant our own woods, using sustainable management techniques. As proof, every tree planted will be tagged with our clients' names, providing a full audit trail."
Luxury Explorer's first wood is being planted at Denhay Farm near Bridport, in the beautiful Marshwood Vale in Dorset, UK. Denhay is famous for its outstanding Cheddar cheese, air dried hams and bacons and also as a key supplier to Duchy Originals.
George Streatfeild, Denhay's managing director, added "We share Luxury Explorer's vision and passion for quality, service, environmental responsibility and accountability and are delighted to be their first partner."
How will it work?
Planting trees is simple, nurturing them to maturity when they will have a positive impact on the environment is more complex. This is why Luxury Explorer wants direct control of the process.
LE will lease land from Denhay Farms on long-term contracts and plant designated areas with healthy saplings. Each acre will comprise 700 trees. As hotel room nights are booked, LE will 'personalise' each tree, by tagging them with the name of each customer. When the first acre is fully allocated a second will be planted and so on.
By appointment, Luxury Explorer personal members (currently >750 worldwide)
can even visit the wood to see their trees for themselves. Regular updates of the wood's growth will be posted on Luxury Explorer.com
Over time, woods require careful management and after ten years up to 50% of the trees will need to be removed as the wood is 'thinned', to allow the maturing trees to continue their growth. However, by this point, the trees will be much more effective at absorbing carbon dioxide, so the eco-effect of the investment continues to improve. The felled trees will then be used to create a Luxury Explorer collection of furniture and accessories, such as picture frames, to be designed by famous designers.
Luxury Explorer will plant only indigenous hardwood trees at Denhay: mainly oaks, beeches, cherry and alder, for wetter areas.
During 2007 Luxury Explorer will choose other sites where the company can have similar direct access to the woodland or forest, while maintaining its need for fully audited planting and management.
