Ecoboo is a new boutique hotel with Portuguese capital in the Maldives, focused on sustainability since its construction and committed to guaranteeing a “real Maldivian experience,” general manager Hugo Pedrosa told PressTUR.
The name of the hotel comes from a combination of two words: “ecological” (compliance with environmental principles) and “bamboo” (in English “bamboo”), the material that was most often used in its construction.
“In the construction of the hotel, we used about 35 kilometers of bamboo,” Hugo Pedrosa told PressTUR at an event in Lisbon organized by tour operator Sonhando for travel agents (click to read: Dreaming offers the idyllic Maldives “as they always imagined” but with a “special” touch.).
Ecoboo, which opened in late July, has 26 rooms and is located on a local island, Thinadhoo, home to about 40 people, “90 minutes by speedboat or 25 minutes by seaplane” from Male Airport.
“The whole project is sustainable, from planning to day-to-day,” Hugo Pedrosa guarantees, pointing out that the hotel desalinates and filters seawater, collects rainwater, uses wastewater for irrigation, and recycles organic waste through an accelerated composting process that allows you to get fertilizer for the garden in 24-48 hours.
The hotel also has solar panels that enable it to reach a self-sustaining level of “about 70-80%” and inorganic waste shredding equipment it provides to the local community, allowing it to reduce the size of waste for transport and recycling.
In addition to bamboo, coconut fiber is another of the most commonly used materials in Ecoboo, namely in bed mattresses.
One of the hotel’s missions is to provide “a real Maldives experience,” its CEO emphasized. To that end, Ecoboo offers a seven-day program with daily experiences including visits to uninhabited islands and sandbars, swimming with sharks, dolphin watching, snorkeling and fishing.
“The experience package is ready on a turnkey basis,” Hugo Pedrosa summed up, specifying that it includes accommodation on a full board basis, daily activities and transfers to and from the airport.
Since it is on an island with residents and the Maldives is a Muslim country, the hotel is not allowed to sell alcoholic beverages. However, from “February or March,” Ecoboo will have a ship off the island that will be a floating bar-restaurant where customers can arrive in about five minutes by boat and will be allowed to sell alcoholic beverages.
