Essays

Yucatan Holidays General Intern – Binta Patrick, Grenadian from True Blue Bay Resort
Sustainable Tourism at Hacienda Tres Rios by Binta Patrick, Grenadian
The recently opened all inclusive, three times travel award winner and green global certified Hacienda Tres Rios Five-star Resort in Mexico; was the venue for a three week internship organized by the Caribbean Hotel & Tourism Association EDUCATION FOUNDATION in collaboration with the Yucatan Holidays. The internship programme was made possible for hotel workers throughout the Caribbean; to learn more about sustainable tourism development in relation to the protection of the environment and becoming eco friendly.


Hacienda Tres Rios Resort

I applied for this internship programme mainly because I wanted to learn more about the environment and how important it is to preserve our natural resources here in Grenada and to also experience a different cultural setting at a much larger resort. One of the things I had hoped to learn was how other resorts utilize and incorporate their culture into a resort experience. Below are some of the cultural activities at Tres Rios.


Event nights

Tres Rios conducts fun in-house tours such as Sense tour & Jaguar-tour that takes you to their nursery and teaches you about the mangroves and its importance, how it can protect wild life against natural disasters such as Hurricanes etc. There are 4-types of Mangroves in Tres Rios; Red, Black, Button & White, these mangroves help preserve the wild life. Their distribution throughout the world is affected by climate, salinity of the water, fluctuation of the tides, type of soil in the area and, more recently, by development of tidal wetlands for residential use as well as industrial.


Nursery

In 2005 Mexico had unfortunately experienced the roth of Hurricane Wilma which destroyed most of Mexico’s mangroves. Part of Tres Rios eco friendly design was focus on planting over 80,000 trees that was produced in the plant nursery. I also had the opportunity of doing just that in the area of activities which I was excited to be apart of.


Planting of Mangrove Trees

Some of the major differences I notice in working at a small resort such as True Blue Bay Resort as opposed to a larger 5-star resort like Hacienda Tres Rios are: 2-3 are staff assigned to one guest and more services and facilities are offered in larger resort such as a kids club, games room, gym etc.

Hacienda Tres Rios consists of 273 suites and is still in the process of expanding its facilities. This resort is fully Eco friendly and promises to give guests & staff the experience of a lifetime while preserving the natural resources of the region.
When it comes to Sustainable Tourism development Hacienda Tres Rios stands at the forefront. Some of the measures taken to reduce water & energy are:

Water use:
• Purifying saltwater into fresh drinkable water with the use of a desalination plant. In turn all of the water that is use throughout the Resort is saltwater.
• Air-mixing showerheads that reduce water use by 40%.
• Hot water circuits to reduce wasting water.
• Reuse of treated waters for irrigation.

Energy use:
• High efficient centrifugal chillers were installed that pumps cold water from a deep well that pre-chills the system and raise efficiency. This process reduces the energy required for air-conditioning by 10%.
• The air-conditioning equipment also has a heat-recovery system that heats the water used in rooms and public areas. This process has reduced the fuel that is used to heat water in hotels by 75%.
• The use of energy efficient light bulbs in most of the hotel has reduced energy by 70%.



I think we can implement some of these practices in our hotels here in Grenada and throughout the Caribbean and in doing so we will be able to save lots of water and energy usage. At True Blue Bay Resort we have already started by installing movement sensors that shuts off the air –conditioning if room door is open. I believe that’s a start, however, we have a very long way in becoming fully eco friendly.

It was amazing for me to be able to experience a whole new culture, the people were extremely friendly and were always willing to help and I truly felt at home.

I was able to explore the Mexican culture by visiting a few of Mexico’s most famous archeological sites such as Chichen Itza and Tulum. These areas are rich with history from the Mayans civilization which consists of Temples & Pyramids; these amazing groups of people were masters of Mathematics and had also invented the calendar that we use today.


Chichen Itza (left) and Tulum (right)

Part of the Mexican culture is also their phenomenal ability to recreate many delicious dishes such as Tortillas, Quesadillas, Tostadas, Tacos, Tamales (my favorite) amongst others, most of which are very spicy...but good.

I very much enjoyed my stay and hope to return some day.

Written by
Binta Patrick, October 2009

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