Tourism Award for Heritance Kandalama

Heritance Kandalama won Asia's Responsible Tourism Award for large hotel category at the ITB Asia tourism trade show held at the Suntec City Convention Centre, Singapore on October 21.

The exterior image of Heritance Kandalama

Asia's Responsible Tourism Awards is organised by Wild Asia and it is the only tourism award of its kind in Asia. This annual award aims to recognize accommodation sector and tour operators in Asia who are making a difference to sustainable tourism.

The awards showcase exemplary resorts, hotels and tour operators that are committed to environmentally and socially responsible practices.

This year's awards attracted a larger and more diverse number of participants, from India, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Thailand, Cambodia, China, the Philippines and Indonesia. Every year, the judging panel select two finalists for each category based on criteria such as sense of place, whether tourists understand their destinations in terms of the cultural and ecological context; whether the responsible tourism efforts are long-term; involvement of guests, how much the operators involve their guests in their responsible tourism practices; how much sustainability is part of the day-to-day operations and how the operators strive to improve their responsible tourism efforts.