Serena Beach Hotel & Spa is this year?s winner of the coveted Ecowarrior Awards 2012.
The resort was given the recognition at a colorful ceremony held on Friday night at the Nairobi Serena Hotel, one that saw several competitive entries in the Ecotourism Enterprise of the Year- Holiday Homes and Villas Category.
A well- deserved win it was for Serena Beach Hotel & Spa who for 19years embarked on Turtle and Butterfly Conservation as a model of sustainable tourism. The dedication towards practicing sustainable tourism, as well as being crowned Eco Tourism Enterprise 2012- Holiday Homes and Villa category, as well as a Silver and Bronze Eco- rating by Ecotourism Kenya was well worth the effort and dedication this resort has employed over the years.
So what makes Serena Beach Hotel & Spa an Ecotourism Enterprise?
The secret lies in our innovations for responsible tourism and business practices, among them being, turtle and butterfly conservation- something that the resort heavily engages the local communities and fishermen in doing. The resort also has an active Corporate Social Responsibility program that ensures a competitive advantage for it as it markets itself as a leader in ecotourism, a form of travel that has become an extremely popular marketing trend within the industry.
The Turtle Conservation in Shanzu has continued to grow tremendously since 1993. The overall objective of the scheme has been to provide a safe haven for turtle eggs, and to transfer these eggs to safety while providing incentives to the local fishermen who help in protecting them. To date, the scheme has successfully rescued over 10,000 hatchlings. Local fishermen who participate in harvesting the turtle eggs are paid thus boosting their income and benefitting their families. We also offer turtle conservation lectures to guests, done by a resident naturalist on site.
The Butterfly Farm on the other hand has to date successfully bred 57 species of butterflies to save some of Kenya?s 870 species of butterflies, 35% of which are to be found in the Coastal forests. This project recently drew interest from a team of bloggers from Kenya Bloggers Association, who visited the projects and will be hosting various articles and success stories on their blogs which have international recognition and access worldwide.
In keeping with the continuous need to understand and protect the environment in which it operates, Serena Beach Hotel & Spa offers environmental training to both staff and the communities around in a bid to create understanding of the importance of environmental responsibility. Besides this, an onsite naturalist- who is based at the resort provides training to all staff members on environmental policies and practices.
Serena Beach Hotel & Spa has an active Corporate Social Responsibility program as a model of ensuring and practicing sustainable tourism, and to ensure a competitive advantage for it as it markets itself as a leader in ecotourism.
To ensure sustainability of these projects, the resort not only engages in the turtle and butterfly conservation, but has equally employed direct funding in to waters conservation, proper waste disposal and a monthly environmental clean- up. The resort is fitted with water meters and the amount of water being drawn from local water sources is measured daily to ensure that our water saving initiative is making a difference. The hotel also has a desalination plant and borehole. Proper waste disposal and management is ensured by sorting waste at the source and recycling of glass and plastics. The food remains are collected by a contracted local pig farmers from a nearby village, who also benefit from the compost pit as a source of manure instead of using fertilizers.