‘Responsible’ tourists visit El Nido Resorts
More responsible travelers or those who favor destinations that support economic, social and environmental sustainability are heading for El Nido Resorts in Northern Palawan.
The most recent high profile guest was Alexandra Cousteau, filmmaker and advocate for the oceans.
Together with her husband and two children, the granddaughter of legendary explorer Jacques-Yves Cousteau visited three of the four resorts named after the islands that host them: Miniloc, Lagen and Pangulasian.
Cousteau was in the Philippines recently to muster support for the campaigns of Oceana, the largest international environmental organization concerned primarily with oceans conservation. She capped her stay in the country with a visit to El Nido Resorts that included two days of diving with husband Fritz Neumeyer, a green architect based in Berlin, and to bring her fiveyear-old daughter Clementine snorkeling for the first time.
She observed that there are places in the Philippines and in El Nido that don’t exist anywhere else in the world. They are like “museums of what (ocean life) was like hundreds of years ago.”
The National Geographic emerging explorer wanted her pre-schooler to experience them and “to see the extraordinary wonders the ocean has to offer.” Among the diving spots that amazed Cousteau and her group was South Miniloc, a dive site that was brought to the attention of millions of televiewers by her grandfather Jacques when he visited Palawan on the boat
Calypso in 1991. El Nido environmental offi Elaine Tagudando, who was with Cousteau’s group, recalled: “Visibility was good and we got to see iconic yellow snappers and cabbage corals of the area. It was breathtaking to see different schools of fish – soldier, snapper, barracuda – and a trumpet fish couple. None of us wanted to surface even if our dive master was banging the tank and calling for a safety stop.”
Distinct sites teeming with marine life and other natural attractions remain the primary reason responsible travelers favor a destination, according to Joey Bernardino, marketing director.
“It works for us to adopt sustainable practices that help us maintain our natural attractions. We’ve realized that the key to our longevity as a resort is conservation of the attractions around us.”
Javi Hernandez, chief operating officer, observes that upscale travelers from the West eager to discover rare marine life, endangered species and undeveloped natural territories have become a niche market for El Nido Resorts.
The Philippines is part of the Coral Triangle, the global center of marine biodiversity. The Solomon Islands, Palau, and Indonesia are also part of the Triangle.
But in many of these places, it takes hours to get from one marine habitat to the next. El Nido Resorts, on the other hand, offers guests the advantage of over 800 marine species, 400 kinds of corals and 500 marine vertebrae within an area of 200 kilometers.
Cousteau articulated the advantage offered by the Philippines and Northern Palawan: “It’s the center of the center of marine biodiversity in the world.”
Knowing only too well the difficulties and challenges of conserving natural heritage sites, responsible travelers “want to know that we sort and recycle our waste so that only five percent ends up in the dumpsite, that we offer a green menu and serve only seafood that remains bountiful and that 95 percent of our employees are locals,” says Bernardino.