The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Hotels without a footprint
Will the prefab eco-friendly hotel change the future of travel? Jane Mulkerrins gets a feel for a post-pandemic world
Like many of the best ideas, the inspiration for sustainable hotel brand Habitas came about by accident. Oliver Ripley, an Eton and Oxford-educated entrepreneur, had spent 15 years building real estate companies and a private jet firm, before dipping his toe into tech, while in his downtime he was part of a community of Burning Man enthusiasts who attended the festival every year.
When the opportunity arose to help two fellow “Burners” throw a threeday pop-up New Year’s Eve event in Tulum, he saw it “not as a business, just as great friends coming together”.
The event was a sell-out – so they saw the potential for something more permanent. “Our aim was to build an elevated Burning Man camp on the beach. Then we got a little carried away, and ended up with a nice hotel,” Ripley tells me.
Each one of the 35 beachfront rooms at Habitas Tulum (from $300/£220 per night), which opened in 2017, is on stilts with a thatched roof, and were constructed by local carpenters and artisans using sustainable materials.
Ripley and his erstwhile co-founders had, they realised, happened upon a gap in the market. “Millennials – and those with a millennial mindset – want authentic experiences, adventure and connection when they travel, but they don’t necessarily want to sleep in a hostel with strangers,” he says. “And luxury hotels are great, but they can be a little soulless. Nobody was catering to this demographic in between.”
Fast-forward three years and Habitas has just opened a 20-suite lodge in Namibia (from $950 a night, all-inclusive) on a 120,000-acre private estate populated by rhinos, cheetahs, antelope and wildebeest. This year, the
company will open at least three further hotels: in Saudi Arabia, Mexico (in two locations), Costa Rica and Bhutan.
Where traditional hotels take three to five years to open, thanks to its modular construction and use of 3D printing technology, Habitas has reduced its build time to six to nine months. It has its own factory in Mexico, from where the prefabricated buildings are shipped and assembled on site.
There are no foundations or pouring concrete, so the hotels leave a minimal environmental footprint. The philosophy is also locally focused, from hiring to programming. In Namibia, a leaflet
campaign drew 900 locals to train at a free pop-up school, from where the staff was hired, and instead of fitness classes, guests can train outdoors with antirhino-poaching squads.
Ripley believes that Habitas, with its individual open-air villas and its remote locations, is well placed for a post-pandemic world. He also has his sights focused on Colombia and the Dominican Republic, followed, eventually, by Europe. “I’ve written all the places I want us to be,” he says. “I hope Habitas, as a brand, is around for a long time.”