This Underwater Hotel Wants To Lead The Way In Restoring Reefs

This Underwater Hotel Wants 

To Lead The Way In Restoring Reefs

The moving hotel’s owners plan to restore coral 

reefs wherever it’s located.

By Jacqueline Howard

When it comes to the future of travel, many experts have looked
beyond Earth to the cosmos, 
naming space tourism as the next big trend.

But it turns out there’s another trend that’s quietly making waves 

on our home planet, targeting destinations beneath the sea 

instead of above the sky: underwater hotels.

The trend has been dubbed “inner space tourism” by Tony Webb, 

managing director of the new Planet Ocean Underwater Hotel, 

which is in development after receiving a U.S. patent for its 

innovative design last year.

Webb even describes the 12-room luxury submarine hotel,

 which will float about 30 feet beneath the ocean surface,

 as being “like the International Space Station.”

One point of this is

 to try to link

 the tourism to improving 

the environment.”

Planet Ocean aims to donate 10 percent of its proceeds

 to coral reef restoration — and wherever the 

movable hotel is located, marine biologist Dr. Thomas Goreau

 will grow a natural coral reef habitat in that same area. 

The plan includes relocations to various sites around the world.

“One point of this is to try to link the tourism to improving the

 environment,” Goreau, president of the Global Coral Reef Alliance,

 told The Huffington Post. “We help people restore reefs

 and having hotels do something and be part of the solution

 would be great. So far, they’ve been part of the problem.”

Indeed, about 58 percent of the world’s reefs are threatened

 by human activity, such as the coastal development 

of buildings or yachts causing reef damage, 

according to the United Nations Environment Program.

Restoring reefs is possible, however. 

Goreau and his colleagues at the alliance invented 

the so-called biorock method, in which low-voltage electrical 

currents are used to stimulate the growth

 of reefs on limestone surfaces.

“We can grow reef frameworks all around an underwater hotel,

 and put them down on flat sand,” Goreau said. 

“We can grow reefs of any size and shape

 around those and that material is limestone.

 It’s the only marine construction material

 that gains strength with age.”

Planet Ocean itself will only be positioned above sand, 

so as to reduce any potential negative impacts on 

the environment, Eleanor Mitch, CEO of the hotel, 

told The Huffington Post. She added that non-corrosive

 and non-pollutant marine equipment 

will be used to build the hotel.

Marine biologists will help the hotel to select

 the best sites to settle in, Mitch said. 

The underwater property also will make an

 effort to avoid hurricanes and any other weather-related risks.

“We believe that the future of travel and tourism

 will be tailor-made experiences,” she said.

 “We also firmly believe in responsible travel and tourism,

 which means that local economies and 

the environment benefit from these activities. 

It has to be a win-win scenario.”

Just like the ISS, the property presents an exciting

 opportunity to do some science.

fonte:

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/underwater-hotel-restoring-reefs_us_56dd9e05e4b03a4056792891