What’s one major sacrifice you’ve had to make as you become a more sustainable tourism business?
Every month, we ask 100+ of the world's best sustainable tourism leaders a question and pick the best 4 answers. Their answers are disarmingly honest, practical and often rather amusing.
This month, we asked our community:
What’s one major sacrifice you’ve had to make as you become a more sustainable tourism business?
Here are four disarmingly honest answers":
“The folks who want to stay in international branded hotels, with all the comforts of home, are not our folks anyway.”
Michael Bennett
CO-FOUNDER & CEO
Explorer x, Travel business member since 2026
On filtering out the wrong kind of people
I don't think we've had to make any sacrifices to become a more sustainable travel business. What we've done has made our business, and the traveller’s experience, better.
Whether that's using only local suppliers, guides and hotels, or focusing on wildlife conservation and economic sustainability, all of it just makes the traveller’s experience richer and more real.
That said, for travellers who are committed to known international brands, or prioritise jet-setting around, there are challenges. We tend to be more expensive, because we use electric or hybrid vehicles where we can, and we book the local hotel and the local team rather than a large international DMC with more buying power. That costs more.
So at some level, because our pricing is higher, we've probably lost business. That's fine. It's just a filter. If you want to fly around everywhere every two nights and stay in international hotels, you're not our kind of traveller anyway!
“It is less of a sacrifice and more of a conscious effort to lean into supporting the right people, properties and destinations.”
Jay Parmar
Being a sustainable business isn’t about sacrificing anything. We’re just working within the ethos we intended to from the start.
If there is any sacrifice, it's that we chose not to work with certain clientele who don’t share our commitment, or with DMCs, properties and destinations that don’t share our approach.
“Our land can support a 400-room resort. We’ve explicitly chosen not to build one.”
Adrian Garcia
chief information officer
Pacuare Lodge & Lapa Rios, members since 2011 and 2012 respectively and now a Group Member
On giving up revenue potential
One of the most challenging sacrifices has been giving up real revenue potential on the land we look after.
Across Böëna Lodges, we protect roughly 850 hectares of forest in some of Costa Rica's most biodiverse and fragile areas, near national parks and along vital biological corridors.
At Lapa Ríos on the Osa Peninsula, the property sits on about 400 hectares with only 17 rooms. Over 80% of that land is held in a permanent conservation trust. It can never be subdivided, commercially developed, or turned into a larger resort.
The land could support a 400-room resort. We have explicitly chosen not to build one. That decision carries real costs:
Lower guest capacity, and lower revenue for every hectare we hold.
Higher operating expenses in remote locations, where materials often arrive by river raft or boat.
No grid access, so we generate our own power through solar and micro-hydro.
Ongoing investment in land protection, reforestation and community programmes rather than commercial expansion.
It takes constant discipline to hold conservation alongside a business that actually works. And we wouldn’t have it any other way.
“The best solutions often save us money and will have an impact across all of the 4Cs.”
Time!
Finding sustainable solutions to the challenges we face takes a lot of time. We’ll often trial things to test them out before rolling them out. It just takes a lot of time researching those solutions and then implementing them.
The best solutions often save us money and will have an impact across all of the 4Cs. The one thing we love so much about being members of The Long Run is the open sharing of ideas and solutions as it can help us save a lot of time!
Editor’s note: A great example of creative solutions that save money and have an impact across all 4Cs is the black soldier fly waste management system, beautifully portrayed in their 2025 impact report. This is how Grootbos have woven it into their guest experience. And this is how you can apply the learnings to your own property’s organic waste🪰🍊
Bonus notes from the field
More community members weigh in:
NICO & KOEMIE MARAAIS | aardvark bioreserve, klein karoo, south africa
"Being prepared to invest today without always knowing when you will see the return."
Probably the biggest sacrifice is accepting that the return is not immediate.
As a small business, you are constantly balancing what you would like to do for conservation with what you can actually afford. You can spend a lot of money and time restoring land, protecting biodiversity and doing things in a more sustainable way, but you often only see the real benefit years later.
What makes it harder is that there is not always enough practical guidance. There are some very good conservation organisations and people who really understand what happens on the ground, but there is also a lot of bureaucracy, regulation and sometimes too much time spent in offices rather than understanding what it takes to actually run a small business and make conservation work financially.
So the sacrifice is being prepared to invest today without always knowing when you will see the return, and still trying to build a profitable business at the same time.
sean ingles | grootbos private game reserve, global ecosphere retreat® since 2014
"We were shocked to unroll 14 metres of cling wrap!"
This one is on the lighter side of our sustainability journey: one massive challenging sacrifice was removing cling wrap from our kitchens.
We once unrolled a beef fillet that had been wrapped tightly to create the perfect beef medallion. We were shocked to unroll 14 metres of cling wrap!
The decision was taken there and then to remove every single roll. A massive mindset shift for our chefs, but one that's been totally worth it.
Elena de Villiers | Singita Grumeti Reserves, now a group member since 2026
Convenience.
In our journey to sustainability, it became clear that no last-minute shopping, quick replacements or easy (cheaper) fixes would do. The saying "Failing to plan, is planning to fail" applies!
Being remote is challenging and it takes a lot of time and effort to obtain, create and maintain an environmentally friendly space and keep the gears turning. With no nearby resources, shops or wholesalers the convenience of getting anything quickly is out of the question and a challenging sacrifice to make.
Through teamwork, thorough planning and implementing systems that keeps people responsible for their actions we are learning to overcome our need for convenience.
Every month, we ask 100+ of the world's best sustainable tourism leaders a question and pick the best 4 answers. Their answers are disarmingly honest, practical and often rather amusing.