When Vacations Meet Values

Session 92 summary

What does one mean by regenerative tourism?

For David Regenerative tourism is a paradigm shift, it’s a change of how we think and that is a regenerative thought process. To get there, taking a step back, he thinks that regeneration is an evolution from the Green Movement which started with books like; Silent Spring (Carson, Rachel. 1962) and Paul Ehrlich’s book The Population Bomb (1968) back in the 60s of the ecological movement focusing on topics like doing less damage i.e. Identifying all the damage humans were doing to the planet and start reducing that damage. In the 90s there was the Sustainability Movement which was moving beyond doing less damage and the need to begin to move to a place where one is able to maintain things and work in a way where humans are not making damage at all. David thinks that the Regenerative Movement is at a point where we have degraded the planet so much that we need to look at how we repair the damage that was done and move- one of the paradigm shift- from a scarcity mentality to an abundance mentality, to move into a whole systems-of-approach and how we look at and do things. To take a reciprocity into mind when they approach the work that they do and co-evolve with these systems. David is not implying that green is bad- he feels that being green is great, he doesn’t thinks that sustainability is bad, he thinks that there is within the community itself to admit. People feel that it is too much to make people accept green much less sustainability and David throwing in regeneration into it. But David says, “Anywhere you are on, that path is good. If you start out green and then you move to sustainable and then advancing into regeneration then we can always be more green, we can always be more sustainable, we can always be more regenerative.” Another topic related to that is – green, sustainability and regeneration are good for business. It is seen now in the US with companies like Walmart who were once seen as not green- not sustainable are moving fully into realising that when they operate as  sustainable business it is good for business. They reduce their transportation trucking cost, they put solar panels on their roofs and they reduce their electricity cost, they put doors on their refrigeration and reduce the impact from air cushioning, so doing things in this direction is good for business.

How Playa Viva started? What drove you to develop this as a property and how did it unfold over the past few years?

From a personal history perspective, David’s background is in Medium Technology but his first job was working as a bus body in a restaurant and as a waiter paying through his college. Medium technology revolves around storytelling and really helping customers achieve efficiencies in the work they do. So, in 1989, David’s ex-wife bought some property in Troncones and built their home there in a green way and around the same time they had won a lottery ticket and rather than buying a house and a Porsche, they ended up hiring a lawyer and they connected with a biologist in Stanford who was working in the area of Calakmul. Through hiring an environmental lawyer they created one of the largest private preserves in Mexico. That got David on a path of being a conservationist and then through some other relationships he not only ended up being a conservationist but also got involved in social impact, met a guy named Shawn Paul who had a non-profit. Shawn taught him that “unless you solve with people-problems that are providing the pressures on those conservation areas you will never conserve”. What David means by that is there is an area- the jaguar habitat which they were trying to keep from being deforested, where people would go in and do illegal lodging, illegal poaching and hunting of the jaguar. So, by addressing those people problems and helping find economic solutions for them, then they wouldn’t put that pressure on. That is when he went from conservationist to social impact person to dualist. It was in 2005-2006 that his ex-wife bought the land which is Playa Viva who then went off to Greendale which is the US GBC lead certification for building green building. Bill a leader in regenerative design movement, he was originally a leader of the lead movement and he was saying was that “even if you build to the platinum lead standard, you still weren’t the carbon neutral, in the end you are just destroying the planet earth solar pace”. So, the Regenerative Movement was really founded to elevate that gap and that is when David went from his dualist role to the whole Systems Approach around regeneration. For the design and development role; once they hired the regenerative group, they did the whole systems approach to develop network. For this they brought in – geologist, solar experts, archaeologists, anthropologists, spoken history, biologists looking at flora, fauna, the water and the energy, and all the different systems. Then mapped them on top and came up with a design that is Playa Viva. Playa Viva is 86 hectares, 1.6 kms of beach infront. The idea originally was that they would be developing a fractional home model and creating community around that but what ended up happening was that when they opened in 2008, the global economic crisis hit specifically around their housing and people were losing their primary homes much less interested in buying secondary homes and that was when they converted what was model homes into boutique hotel and they grew from their original five-rooms to eight-rooms to twelve-rooms to now nineteen-rooms.

Could you elaborate on what exactly do you mean by system’s approach?

The process that the team went through with re-genesis started with the 360⁰ view looking at all the different aspects of the place and from that they created a map where they began to layer each one of those on top of each other. The process was ‘unfolding the design’ something that happens through the regenerative design process. One does not directly decide to put a high rise building after seeing the sight, they look at what is there and what should be there as a result of that. The other part of the process is creating their set of core values, and Playa Viva has five core values. The first one has to do with the usual green stuff (energy, water, waste drains, more transparent, more sustainable, more regenerative and how they are used). The second is about promoting biodiversity and creating biomass where they are. The last one is about creating their legacy seven (7) generations down in all the things that they do. The two little ones in accordance to differentiation of Playa Viva; one is called creating meeting for the community and the other one is called creating transformational experiences. Once they do the mapping, once they come up with a set of core values, then they start coming up with a program of what they want the experience to be like based on what was there. What emerged in that game process was that they had a coconut grove from where they transplanted the palms into the dunes in the area which was more doable for tourism, those palm trees would form living palm piers to maintain the integrity of the dune and then they would build treehouses in the palm trees and create an entire web of tree-house village from that. They did the task and tested different designs and the carrying capacity of the palm trees i.e. each can carry about 2000 tons. They ended up doing designs on the buildings that way, unfortunately when they started transplanting the palms their success rate was about 50% and so in a hurry of building, they left exposed the beams coming out of the buildings to tie them to the palm trees, and they ended up using cement piers. Later on they perfected their transplanting abilities and got to a point where they had 99.99% effectiveness in transplanting trees. Then in phase three they developed the iconic cone-like treehouse for Playa Viva. From there they ended up building all the treehouses within the treehouse village and also successfully made a yoga platform which is suspended by palm trees. They are super happy with it. The process was done through a series of design threads for which they brought in the whole systems approach where they had their archaeologists, biologists, anthropologists, people from the community, potential clients, tourists, their friends, etc. and they had everybody sitting around so that they can have a much broader perspective on how they should build what they would build.

When you were building treehouses, how much was it in sync with the local community/local culture, or was it a concept that was brought in as a new feature?

For David, not only the history of a place is important but also honouring the place is important. So, the architects did go out into the community and really get a sense of what are some of the more traditional architect types. David does not likes the fact that their place is compared to Bali or someone trying to create that atmosphere in their place. He does not want others to create that in his place, instead they should create the best of that place. Playa Viva is a magical place and it is really upto the people to unfold what are the needs and wants of the place. Hence, treehouses are not a traditional constructional housing method there, but many of the techniques seen in the design is from that area and is done on the place. In so many ways the architecture of a place can be limited by the materials and the visions of the people of that place, even more people don’t live in Manta Ray treehouses. But that drone video of those Manta Rays describes that place and to know that they honoured that, brought that to the land and said this is what happens there. David feels that that is okay (because as part of regenerative travel he has interacted with other people who are doing work in Indonesia and their designs look similar to apartments in Sydney. David felt and questioned that why don’t they build something honouring that place to which they replied that their customers won’t be comfortable there if they do not make the place similar to the western apartments). David thinks that there are ways of taking the local vernacular and taking it to the next level and so, taking bamboo which is a building material, taking cob and clay and natural earth, taking all these different elements that are then inspired by something in nature is honouring a place in the ultimate way.

How has Playa Viva been able to honour the community around?

One of their key differentiators from their key value is the concept of creating meaningful community and meaningful community happens in multiple ways. Firstly, David has noticed that when people are visiting a new place they usually ask for “a table for two” which he feels that if people are visiting a community then they should remove that “table for two” and interact with everyone there. Another thing they did is that the Playa Viva staff wears the traditional Mexican attire a waiter would wear. They also don’t have name tags on their folks, they wear Playa Viva t-shirts and one needs to get to know their name just like they need to get to know the others name in a guest-to-guest and guest-to-staff level. Each one of those ‘rules’ applies/echoes in the communities working there like; in the turtle sanctuary that they have on site which is manned/womanned by 10-14 volunteers from the community. They get the people into the farm and interact with the community there. They have an entire social-impact part of what they do. They inherited what happens to the water shed i.e. if the water shed is dirty and unhealthy then Playa Viva is dirty and unhealthy, if the water shed is clean and organic and they are not throwing thrash in it then they are clean. It is their responsibility to work all the way up to the water shed. Luckily their key and most popular excursions is the 4X4 ride up the water shed, where a family lives up at the top who are working to keep their land from being deforested but there is a lot of cattle ranching and a lot of non-organic bio culture, and a lot of trash being thrown in. so, they work with schools, in couple of different areas- education, health and economic development. But they have five nodes that they work in which includes not only education but also fisheries, permaculture i.e. farming the watershed and cultural areas as well. Is Playa Viva just a hotel? There are many aspects in which they do act as a hotel- hospitality component, but there is the farming component and then there is the whole social impact component in what they do. Therefore there are a whole lot different areas to Playa Viva and the community is a big part of it. They involve in the watershed cleanliness issue and health and education issue, but there are so many other issues around, that if ‘we have a well-educated community then we have a workforce’. So, when he talks about the core value of thinking seven generations down then it is that workforce. When they did the initial interview with the community on spoken work then they asked the question: ‘what are your hopes, dreams and aspirations for the place?’ and the town elders told them that the town was dying, that there were no opportunities, that people were leaving for bigger cities, they only had the kids left behind and then they were also leaving. Now, what they are seeing is people coming back to Juluchuca, to these communities, forming little micro businesses, supporting what Playa Viva is doing and the community is beginning to thrive again. When often asked what drives David or gives him the joy in his work by people, then he answers about the ‘triple ripple’ i.e. when Amanda in the Playa Viva farm talks about visitors who use pesticides back at their home visit her and later the visitors share how they have stopped doing that and are now using what they learned at Playa Viva farm in their own farms and even more so teaching their neighbours – that is the ‘triple ripple’ David is talking about- i.e. affecting those people who don’t even know that Playa Viva is affecting them. That is the most satisfying thing about what they do. The ‘triple ripple’ in the community is where David derives the most joy in what he is doing.

Could you elaborate on honouring the local ecology?

In the multitier map they looked at what that place used to be and part of the regenerative mindset is that- ‘you can build to make things better’. But David used to feel that anytime someone builds, they destroy and so Bill’s answer really flipped a switch in David’s mind. 99% of the places where humans are going to develop that place has been degraded by humans in some form or fashion, human fingerprints have been on that place. So, if one can understand how that place got to be where it is and got degraded to what it is, then one can understand their role in bringing back the abundance that was once there. The big part of the mapping work was to know/explore what was there, not just from the biodiversity point, but from the biomass perspective they were able to map Playa Viva into couple of different zones. One was the present day mangrove which was a mangrove but vanished, so they brought back the mangrove and restore it in that area. There was a lagoon that got cut off from water ways with invasive grass from cattle, so they began to restore and dreg and bring back the water to those areas which got cut off. The areas which were coastal forests with a certain type of trees which were once there, so with what trees they could still find on the land, the amount that is gone and what they needed to bring back, they created a nursery of 10,000 trees and began planting trees throughout the entire property and that too is one of the most satisfying things about Playa Viva. There was another zone which they decided to leave fallow as it is and there are other areas with coconut groves which they are going to maintain as coconut grove and plant other varieties of coconut so that they have diversity amongst that. There are other areas which are farms where they focus on how to replenish the soil and bring back the biomass in the soil itself. How can they bring in more fruit trees in it, how can they bring in animals there- they now have sheep graze under orchard, which helps in mowing the lawn and at the same time fertilizing it. From a wilder animal stand of point they do have a protected beach because the turtles come under protected species, there are three species of turtles that go there abundantly. They work with the volunteers of the community to set up the turtle sanctuary because many of them used to be poachers and now they are creating a financial incentive to conserve rather than to degrade. The place still has a lot of animals that come in that dig up the turtle nests, so there are battle between the two forces of nature. Apart from these there are species which were not seen for a long time are now seen there. So, they are definitely seeing an increase in the biomass that is coming in and it is a no hunt zone. At Playa Viva the water ways are federal so people can come and fish but by increasing the mangrove they are able to increase the fish stocks as well and it is a part of their regenerative.

What kinds of customers and clients visit Playa Viva and what is it that they are seeking that Playa Viva is able to give them?

Part of Playa Viva’s branding about luxury is this sense that ‘you chuck all my boxes even the boxes I didn’t know that I have’. So, when talking to their guests (when their trip is over) they (guests) exclaim that they never knew that they could live in a place with no A/C and realise the luxury of being immersed in nature, how their body reacts to that and how great it is to not be medically sealed in a refrigerated room in the hum of man-made sounds. So, luxury has a different definition to them to that extent that; one can take a hot shower and the water is heated by the sun – there is no carbon used to heat the water, one can have all the luxuries without too much of the compromise if not maybe no compromise. So, that part of the luxury message that they give. Another thing is David feels that a lot of luxury is about stratifying the clientele- “who do you want sitting next to the bar? Do want to look and see if their watch is nicer than yours? Think about if you can sit with them and talk about big deals and be proud about how you are masters of the universe?” At Playa Viva it is about sitting around a table, eating a farm-to-table meal and somebody who can afford to go to the Fore Seasons with somebody ‘this is a stretch to them’. What David is talking about is what they are doing to make Playa Viva a better place for everyone. So, while staying at the treehouse with 2 people during holidays might be 800$, everything included, staying in their studio might be 300$ which is affordable. The stratification they are trying to make isn’t price based, it is value based, so that is where they use the tagline ‘Where Your Vacation Meets Your Values’ and they do tell people right off that there is no air-conditioning, there is no minibar, there is no TV in their room to avoid that type of guests. But what is really interesting is that David sees a lot of groups that go to Playa Viva- and every once in a while there is someone who will go with the retreat leader and not even lookup where they are going and after entering/reaching Playa Viva, they are outside of their comfort zone and they start freaking out. Those people are the ones who by the end of the retreat are the most transformed. So, luxury doesn’t have to be gold platted, marbled, slippers, robes, etc. luxury is something else and that emersion in luxury – luxury is walking sitting on the net of the treehouse and looking up in the sky and seeing the milky way, those experiences are luxury- things which people can experience in their day to day life.

Why do you think people/members of the local community have not been able to develop similar kinds of properties/tourism centres?

Sometimes there is the need of people from the outside to tell the locals how really beautiful what they have is. For people who built their living off of an agricultural base like; coconut, tamarind, mangoes or cattle (through cattle ranching and cutting everything down and overgrazing), they don’t know that they have got beautiful beaches and they have authentic experiences such as watching the whales by the beach side, etc. things which other people crave for but which is a common experience for the people there. So, David thinks that it is the ability to come from the outside, bring people who are looking for that authentic experience and try to keep it authentic and engaging. For David, tourism and travel is: “it would take you a long time and very hard to reach to a place where nobody has been to and when you get there it is a cultural experience change like one is coming into your home, you host them in your home, treat them with respect and they treat you with respect and your gift is to feed them and their gift is to give you something- reciprocity.” David feels that they (the locals) cannot recreate that reciprocity without David’s team or others coming in and offering something in return for it. That is part of the honouring place, and by them honouring the place the locals feel honoured and then they can share what is regular to them but is special to others and the specialness of that experience then gets shared and they feel great and honoured by that.

What were the challenges when building with bamboo?

Playa Viva website/YouTube has a 1 minute video about the bamboo used in Playa Viva and what David loves about it is that they were bringing in big pine beams that are the base of the building which took almost 8 people to carry those and then there can be seen a beam of same length which people are easily carrying, hence the weight of bamboo is wonderful. So, David says that if someone is building up on trees, then having a lightweight but very strong structure is a must for which bamboo is perfect. The other plus point is from carbon usage: the bamboo will grow in 7 years whereas it takes 30-40 years to have the same strength in other materials. Another merit is that bamboo can be grown on site, which the team is currently doing and they want to grow more and more bamboo and become a center for bamboo so that it can be a construction material that they can sell. They use a limited amount of bamboo in Playa Viva for railings, light posts, furniture but they are probably not making enough bamboo that when they build the treehouse village, they could source it all. They were able to source much of it from Mexico, some from Columbia but they usually source it from Columbia. When the architects did the bamboo design, Nomadic Resorts, they recommended those bamboos by Jörg Stamm (big in bamboo design). They then brought in some people from Columbia to work with the bamboo but they also had a lot of folks from Mexico working with the bamboo. The way they built the buildings: they did a combination of building the paraboloids on the ground with the bamboo and lifting them up and placing them on living trees but also constructing the treehouse  in parts- the panels= wall panels, side panels were built offsite and came in and they were able to assemble them. The main challenge for them; as a hotel they are very interested in maintenance making sure that they can maintain that over the long haul. So, the bamboo as exposed to nature degrades very quickly compared to other materials so they need to varnish it, keep it polished and then the bamboo which is exposed outside has two layers- one is inner layer bamboo and then the outer layer bamboo and then they would change that outer layer bamboo probably every 7 years or so. There are a lot of bamboo bones due to the transverse cut of bamboo which also needs to be treated because of the humidity. The climate there can also degrade the bamboo, also insects can also degrade it too. Since the bamboo is malleable the team can be quite creative with it like building tunnel like structures etc.

How would you summarize the social impact that Playa Viva has been able to create in this space?

One of the mistakes that they made in the past (and still continue to do so) is that they didn’t do the baseline study of the community when we first arrived. So, if someone is going into development like them then that is one thing which David definitely recommends i.e. do a baseline study. What he means by that is begin to ask those social impact questions whether it is awareness around waste, water, energy, education, health, etc. The team had ended up doing the baseline study 10 years into the hotel and now the goal is to really begin to do that same study on an ongoing basis. They did that with a control group in another community of a similar size so that compared to the impact the hotel might have had in those 10 years they could see the control group, their hotel, their community and then measure the two, it is important to them to measure their impact. Related to that they are in the process of getting their B-Corp certification and hopefully that would give them a metric system that begins to measure the community impact as well. David thinks that those metrics comes in many different areas. They look at something e.g. education and create a baseline around it like; look at many different indications across education and across fisheries etc. and then they can begin to measure different indicators on those five nodes. So, there are many different areas but David feels that measuring is the basis of all that to really understand their impact because it would help in giving a more factual based report on impact.