LEAVE ONLY FOOTPRINTS

More Australians want to reduce their environmental impact and travel with purpose. But working out how sustainable your holiday might be is far from easy.

- PAUL MERRILL

APPROACHING THE LUXURIOUS Thala Beach Resort by seaplane, you immediately notice something unusual. Perched on a rocky headland between Cairns and Port Douglas in far north Queensland, where coconut palms and eucalypts of the dense rainforest cascade down to the picture‑postcard sandy beach, the 85 guest bungalows, restaurants, reception area and spa are certainly conspicuous from above…by their absence.

In fact, it’s almost impossible to believe such a thriving hotel complex is there at all, because all you can see from above is the vast tangle of trees that stretch from the unspoilt shoreline across to the gentle slopes of Mowbray National Park in the distance.

Thala Beach is one of a growing number of eco‑hotels where sustainability is infused into every feature – from the passive and low‑energy cooling systems, property‑to‑plate food, onsite wastewater treatment and no single‑use plastics to the revegetation of what used to be a degraded sugar plantation into a biodiverse habitat teeming with wildlife.

“In the early days, ecotourism wasn’t a term you could take to market,” resort director Seton Prettejohn says, “and it was a battle to differentiate ourselves within the luxury sector. But over the last decade, we’ve seen it move into the mainstream consciousness. Guests want less glitz and more green.”

They certainly do. The dramatic surge in demand is driven by customers rather than any new legislation. More than 70 per cent of Australian tourists are looking for more sustainable holidays, and there’s a growing realisation that international air travel is unlikely to become environmentally friendly anytime soon. Indeed, there’s an inherent contradiction in jetting halfway around the world to stay in a carbon‑neutral eco‑lodge.