ENVI LODGES
Thinking about the future
We have a responsibility toward our children to leave the planet in a better shape than how it was given to us by our parents. Unfortunately, this has not been happening. Our natural habitat has been deteriorating every year, and little has been done to protect it. The pandemic provided us with a wake-up call. Now we are seeing serious efforts from hoteliers to slow down our industry’s negative impact, to even stop it, but we need to do more. A critical part of sustainability is to regenerate the environment, and this is what ENVI Lodges is focusing on. Travel and tourism can only flourish if there are places left to visit. What would our lodges be without the beach or the mountain, the forest or the desert? How can we provide authentic experiences without local communities? We have a duty to protect the entire ecosystem and every action matters. I found this quote from Robert Swan very powerful: “The greatest threat to our planet is the belief that someone else will save it.” We must take matters into our own hands. We need to be drivers of change; that’s what I hope to leave as a legacy.
Leading by example
My motto is to lead by example. On a personal level, I apply this by being the best version of myself for my daughter. You cannot tell your kids one thing and do the opposite; you must follow the same rules you set for them. On a professional level, I hope to inspire people to follow the steps that my cofounder, Noelle, and I took to create a business that put as much importance on doing good as on being profitable. Finding that balance is not easy; it’s a constant battle between economic realities and a genuine desire from investors to be responsible. We lead ENVI while believing that this balance can be achieved. We try to push boundaries, to challenge the status quo, which requires concrete actions that are monitored and communicated so that we inspire our team to do good, encourage our lodge owners to continue investing in ESG projects and hopefully have a positive impact on the behavior of our guests beyond their stay at an ENVI lodge.
Experiential hospitality
ENVI Lodges was based on three main principles: people are happier and healthier when in nature, so it’s all about outdoor hospitality for us; the definition of luxury has changed — it’s less to do with the material aspects and more to do with how you live, what you eat and what you experience; and sustainability guides everything we do, be it the way we build our lodges, the way we operate them, how we regenerate the environment around us, protect heritage and support the locals that welcome us on their land. Thankfully, we are not the only ones doing it. We have been inspired by some amazing hospitality brands that came before us and redefined hospitality in their region, be it in Africa or South America, and we hope to do the same in our region, the Middle East, before we expand our portfolio globally.
New hotel project in MENA
ENVI Lodge Red Sea Coast, (opening Q4 2023) (KSA)