El Geco Verde Tour Operator

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Our company, Obilandes Proyecto Rural SL, is devoted to the development of rural tourism in a traditionally economically and socially disadvantaged region of Andalucia. Our activities are based around our Eco Hotel El Geco Verde in the Sierra de Castril and the Altiplano de Granada, a largely undiscovered and totally unspoilt area of mountains, lakes, forests and deserts. We promote a wide variety of eco-friendly activities here including bird watching, walking, horse riding and traditional local cookery lessons. We use our language skills to make this wonderful and rare pocket of authentic Spanish culture and tradition more accessible to international travellers.
Member since: 21 Nov 2011

How the minimum criteria of the responsible travel standard was met...

Economic responsibility

El Geco Verde provides employment for two local women who help with cleaning and turning rooms around during high season. As visitor numbers increase we hope to be able to offer more frequent employment opportunities for in this vein. We encourage all our clients to buy in the local shops, eat in the local restaurants and bars and we actively promote and sell local artifactcs and products such as honey, glass, olice oil. one of our young neighbours recently established his own adventure activities company, EcoActiva, which provides a much needed service offering guided kayaking, canyoning, rock climbing, horse riding, mountain biking etc. This is an enterprise which we have supported since its inception and which we hope will gain strength as more tourism comes to the area. This is why we have designed our activity packages in association with EcoActiva.

Environmental responsibility

Power wise we are completely Žoff gridŽ or self sufficient, so we do not support a national grid which still relies heavily on nuclear and coal fired energy sources. We use two separate banks of solar panels for electricity generation and domestic water heating respectively. In addition our central heating system is driven by a large pellet burner stove (waste product of the carpentry industry) which also provides ambient heat for the dining room. We use only energy-efficient light bulbs and every bathroom has shower facilities, water saving taps and dual flush toilets to encourage sensible use of water.

Social responsibility

At least two young chefs are offering workshops as part of our Traditional Andalucian Cooking package. In this way we hope to foster a greater respect for the culinary traditions of the region and to help prevent them from dying out. We are members of BioCastril, a local movement for organic farming and we purchase additional fruit and vegetables from Eco Altiplano, which is a distribution hub for the organic farmers of the region. We always encourage our guests to try local restaurants, shops and visitor attractions by offering them useful information and by using our language skills and contacts to book and organise visits on their behalf

This family run eco hotel is the baby of Anglo-Italian couple Des and Ilaria. They decided to swap London for living. Slow living, in a secret Spanish heaven.
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