THE NEGRIL Cabins Resort and Port Antonio's Hotel Mocking Bird Hill, for the second consecutive year, have been voted the Caribbean's greenest.The hotels, according to a news release, along with Barbados' Casuarina Beach Club were named on June 27 as the Caribbean Hotel Association (CHA)/American Express "Most Environmentally Friendly Hotels in the Caribbean" at the CHA 2000 Caribbean Hotel Industry Conference (CHIC) in Cancun, Mexico.
Negril Cabins won an Achievement Award in the large hotels category and the 10-room Hotel Mocking Bird Hill was tops in the small hotel category. Casuarina emerged the winner among large hotels. Both Negril Cabins and Mocking Bird Hill were 1998 top runner in both the large and small hotel categories.
Negril Cabins and Mocking Bird Hill were two of the first in the world to achieve environmental certification by Green Globe International, following participation in Jamaica's Environmental Audits for Sustainable Tourism (EAST) Project a joint United States Agency for International Development, Jamaica Hotel & Tourist Association initiative implemented by the U.S. environmental firm Hagler Bailly Inc, and credit with improving the environmental performance of Jamaican hotels through adoption of environmental management systems.
Barbara Walker, who with Shireen Aga, owns Hotel Mocking Bird Hill sees the award as confirmation that the management system that they conceived for the hotel more than seven years ago is the correct one.
"It hasn't been easy," Barbara explained. "When we began talking about environmentally-friendly tourism it wasn't a very popular or well-understood concept. But EAST provided wonderful support and now more people are beginning to understand. It is wonderful that after so much hard work that our efforts are being acknowledged, not just in Jamaica but regionally and internationally," she said.
Negril Cabins' Maxi and Fay Bell also regard the Caribbean Hotel Assoc-iation/American Express award as confirmation of the value of the work begun under EAST and contained by the hotel's "Green Team."
Noting that the hotel took the recommendations of the EAST's audit team seriously from the start of the programme two years ago, Mr. Bell said, "We committed all our resources, human and financial, to ensure Negril Cabins was on firm environmental ground. Our staff put all their energies into making the hotel environmentally friendly and our guests have responded positively. This award is the icing on the cake."
JHTA president, James Samuels, was full of praise for the hoteliers and the many others in Jamaica who have answered the call to operate their properties in a manner that ensures a healthy and sustainable product for Jamaicans and visitors.
Mr. Samuels noted that with the USAID funding a third phase of the EAST project in Jamaica, "work towards the greening of Jamaica will continue apace."
