We spoke with Patricia Plesner, CEO and founder of Ecohotels.com to know more about the principles and motives behind EcoHotels.com, an eco-entrepreneurship with a purpose.
Check out what we found out!
What is EcoHotels.com?
EcoHotels.com was founded in April 2020 as an alternative to the large and dominant online travel agencies also known as OTAs, which business model is based on charging hotels hideous rate commissions that can severely decimate their identity, concept, and outcome.
Additionally, large booking sites aren’t taxed in the country hotels operate, as a result, revenue isn’t invested in public services and infrastructure having a detrimental impact on local economies.
EcoHotels.com aims to create a community for hotels in which knowledge and best practices can be shared. EcoHotels.com is also a platform to promote responsibility in the travel industry.
Click here if you want to read more about EcoHotels.com principles.
How did EcoHotels.com started?
Patricia Plesner is the CEO and funder of EcoHotels.com. She is an entrepreneur from Copenhagen who became passionate about traveling and sustainability at a very early age.
Traveling the world with her family since she was a child, made her aware of the impacts mainstream tourism industry has on people and the environment.
She witnessed firsthand appalling practices of the tourism industry such as underpaying hotel staff, food waste, and garbage dumping into the ocean.
She thought more could be done in the industry for a better environment and came up with the idea of a booking site focused on responsibility, fair principles, and low commissions.
Along with her team of digital marketers, developers, and sustainable-focused strategists, she runs EcoHotels.com and keeps the platform in constant development and progress.
What is EcoHotels.com doing to help change the travel industry?
Given the current global challenges due to COVID-19, the hotel industry has experienced a financial crisis, however, she thinks the crisis also represents a new opportunity for hotels to transition operations into a more sustainable model.
Thus, EcoHotels.com aims to provide social entrepreneurs from around the world access to expertise, international visibility, and market opportunities.
In the last few months, EcoHotels.com has experienced steady growth in views and bookings. There are hundreds of certified hotels live and bookable on the site right now! A positive prospect for ecotourism as demand for more sustainable accommodations continues to grow. “Eco-friendly holidays can become the norm and we are here to help travelers become more responsible,” says Patricia Plesner, for the blog.
The continuously growing eco-community and the longing for more sustainable traveling choices give EcoHotels.com great hope that the big wave of responsible travel will boom sooner than later!
You can read more about EcoHotels.com partnerships here. If you want to learn more about the eco-label certification system and its principles, click here and here.