Text by Ian Hall Photos by Emran Taib, Melissa Cornejo and Ian Hall See original post on Wild Asia's RTA blog. Responsible tourism at its best can allow us to trial a lifestyle that may counter the ecological crisis and bring us closer to nature. At Nikoi Island in Indonesia guests are separated from their air conditioning and consumer gadgets and provided instead with a low-energy beach front house without walls. The luxury here is to be able to smell the sea from your room, to be able to hear the insects as you sleep and enjoy...

Arkitrek are proud to be associated with Wild Asia's Responsible Tourism (RT) Awards 2009. Ian Hall has been invited to join the judging panel which will decide this year's winners from a shortlist of 8 accommodation operators throughout Asia. Wild Asia targets accommodation owners because these are the people who have made a commitment to a place. With this 'rooted-ness' comes a long term view that is essential for social and environmental sustainability. Responsible tourism is an evolution of the term 'eco-tourism'. The words...

He held the mud crab still with his bare feet whilst deftly tying up the claws with a length of pink raffia. Job done, the fisherman tossed his catch into a bucket. On our request the second fisherman sorted us out half a dozen choice crabs and a bargain was done. Our two boats parted company and we left the fishermen to their work. Sungai Sedili Kecil is not on the tourist track but that’s why I was there as a guest of Wild Asia. Our job was to assess the community based eco-tourism tourism potential of this proposed Ramsar...

Above is a photo of work in progress at BRL. This ‘mock-up’ chalet is now complete and all remaining 8 rooms should be ready by the end of June. We deliberately programmed construction to complete one twin chalet ahead of the others. This approach has proved very useful and has allowed us time to tweak the design without big cost penalties.The photo shows the concrete base of a spa bath which has been installed in six of the ten chalets. As well as being the area of design which as been most ‘tweaked’, this bath also...