We spotlight a Sport Changer who evokes, educates and celebrates individuality, magnificence and magnificence. This month, meet Melita Koulmandas, a sustainable journey pioneer and CEO and founding father of Track Saa Non-public Island, off the coast of Cambodia.

What was it about Cambodia and Track Saa particularly that you simply have been so drawn to?

I moved to Cambodia in 2004. I’ve a really adventurous spirit and I really like visiting distant locations, and I used to be captured by the essence of Cambodia within the folks, the power and the vibrancy. However again then Cambodia was very a lot nonetheless waking up after the Khmer Rouge, and it’s a nation, even to today, that’s in therapeutic. 70 p.c of the inhabitants have been underneath the age of 30 again then, so it had this actually younger, dynamic spirit. There was a lot positivity, which was one thing that I feel that was in contradiction to what most likely folks felt concerning the nation at the moment.

I had simply spent two weeks circumnavigating the Koh Rong archipelago, and it was pristine and the water was crystal clear. We’d cease outdoors of the seashores and park in a single day and sleep on the fishing boat, and monkeys would come right down to the water’s edge. It was simply a rare expertise.

Why does it matter for folks to expertise Cambodia?

I feel that Cambodia is an extremely particular place, and although it sits between its neighbours Thailand, Vietnam and Laos—three nations which have very lengthy histories and are nicely outlined by way of tourism—Cambodia continues to be figuring out who it’s. So anybody who visits Cambodia at all times walks away with a way that they’ve had an actual, human reference to it. It doesn’t matter in the event that they’re visiting the temples of Angkor Wat or going by way of Phnom Penh or coming right down to the coast—there’s at all times this distinctive expertise of actual connection that you simply get if you come to Cambodia. Cambodia has its personal essence, its personal sense of place, and its personal historical past.

How is Track Saa’s method to sustainability and group programmes distinctive in comparison with developments of an analogous nature?

As a result of we began off with constructing group initiatives, with no imaginative and prescient at that time to open a resort, we’ve designed and created a resort expertise for our visitors the place that’s woven in from Day One, versus designing and opening a resort and making that match into the resort. which could be very a lot what
regenerative tourism improvement design is all about. So we have a look at the residing system and the way we are able to function inside that and assist to reinforce these methods. The work that we do is thru the nonprofit Track Saa Basis, which is its personal entity. If the resort shut down tomorrow, the muse would proceed to function, so the programmes that we work with aren’t there as a result of it makes the resort really feel good. They’re there as a result of that’s what we’d like, so the whole lot is community-driven.

Would you say duty and luxurious are, by their very nature, in opposition? Can they coexist?

I imagine they will coexist. To start out with, I feel we’ve to know what the definition of luxurious is on this context, and it’s actually developed up to now few years. We don’t use the phrase “luxurious” and haven’t for some time, we discuss high-end or accountable tourism. Coming into a rustic like Cambodia, even when that travelling is at a high-end stage, by simply connecting to the folks and the tradition, it brings empathy and
consciousness that they take residence with them. The place the high-end traveller can actually deliver a whole lot of change is that they actually need to perceive the historical past and the place the place they’re at, they usually then typically donate to the programmes that we’ve, so there’s that transference of consciousness and help.

What are your ideas on the altering panorama of sustainability-minded tourism in recent times, particularly in Southeast Asia, and shopper expectations and the way they’ve developed?

I feel they’ve developed enormously. I feel there’s a higher consciousness for most individuals, and that there’s a actual shift away from the vacationers of 20 or 30 years in the past. Individuals now determine as travellers, they usually need to have that have and connection. Historically, again then folks used to remain within the massive motels,
the place they’d step into after which they’d be transported again right into a cocoon. And now folks need to really feel, join, be taught and develop, and that’s extremely particular.

This text was first seen on Grazia.Sg

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