More travelers booking Airbnb home-share options are looking at properties on the platform’s eco-friendly listings. Trending this year, the eco-friendly listings have been booked by 4.5 million guests, worldwide.
Global bookings increased by 50% for environmentally conscious spaces, while eco-friendly listings expanded 30% globally over the past year.
Having logged more than half a billion guests arrivals at Airbnb listings worldwide since the company was founded, Airbnb is focusing on a community model that helps fight growing mass tourism and overcrowding through local and unique recommendations, especially through eco-friendly places and experiences.
Destinations with the highest percentage of eco-friendly listings on Airbnb are usually small-town escapes, well away from urban centers and major cities, like Manuel Antonio, Quepos, Costa Rica.
Listings feature a variety of eco-friendly experiences from a tree house in a teakwood forest in Thailand to an eco-bamboo hideout in the mountains of Bali’s Mount Agung and an eco-luxe recycled shipping container in Australia.
From the moment of conception to the rehabilitation of this 30 year old property, Tico Tico Villas has striven for re-purposing and sustainability and a low impact on nature and wildlife. We have expanded the capacity for guests while reducing electrical usage by 28% and water waste via repairs, efficiency lavatories and the planting of indigenous, drought tolerant plants.
As for the environmental area, to protect the aquifers of the Quepos area, we use low suds, eco-friendly products (shampoo, soap,) from the newly installed wall dispensers which will eliminate the use of over 1,000s of small containers yearly.
In addition to using phosphate-free detergents to wash the bedding, towels, curtains and we utilize the sub-surface grey water of the laundry zone in the main garden area to reduce water waste.
In order not to make an excessive expenditure of water, our “Light Touch” cleaning procedures easily coordinates with our guests for reduced washing of linens and air drying of clothing articles.
The use of aerosols and sprays are minimized in order not to contribute to the deterioration of the Ozone Layer and to intervene pollution from Tico Tico Villas.
We encourage our guests to participate, passively by utilizing their in room recycle bin or utilizing the properly identified bins that are on the property, in order to promote the 4 R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Recover)
Airbnb says it is working to bring environmentally conscious travel to even more people through its Community Tourism Program
that partners with My Green Trip, a growing network of eco-friendly travelers dedicated to organizing community clean-ups and sharing sustainable travel habits.
Operation Rich Coast is a locally supported international organization that sponsors local beach and jungle clean-ups with tourists, volunteers and community leaders like Julie Vigneault and Sandy Schmidt. We post their notifications and encourage our guests to give a few hours of their time to removing some of the plastics and trash from around the world that washes up on the shores of Costa Rica. Become one of the local heroes making a difference, even if you are only here for a short time.
This year, Airbnb is committing EUR5 million to support efforts to make travel more authentic and sustainable and Tico Tico Villas wants to be part of that.
Photo by Aleksandr Ljamin on Unsplash / Photo by Caglar Araz on Unsplash / Photo by Isabella Juskov/on Unsplash
