Haciendas, Awarded To Reconcile Tourism With Respect To The Mayan.

A Mexican tourist group that has turned old haciendas dedicated to the cultivation of sisal in luxury hotels has managed to reconcile with sustainable tourism development in the Maya communities where it operates, which earned him a major prize in the U.S.
"We found the hotel door did not start on the hull of the estate but in the gate community," he told Efe the architect Luis Bosoms, general director of Grupo Plan, which had driven through his foundation to support more than 12,000 people in the Yucatan peninsula.
Last September Conde Nast Traveler magazine, which annually awards the best tourism initiatives with the World Saver's Award, the highest score awarded to the Mexican group in community programs to combat poverty.
It also awarded to the five estates in the Group Plan, located in the states of Yucatan and Campeche, a special mention for an educational program of mobile libraries in indigenous communities, and another to another program to provide health care near the plantations.
Bosoms In the interview said that adding all the points, the Group Plan, which through the farms get about $ 9 million a year, was "the company was rated higher.
The CEO said that much of the success of offering sustainable tourism and community development depends on the job is done from the Haciendas del Mundo Maya Foundation (www.haciendasmundomaya.com), who devotes his energy to education programs, health infrastructure and have benefited from 12,000 to 13,000 people.
Faced with the offer that is in Cancun and Playa del Carmen, the estates, which have been restored, are based on developing the culture of the Mayas and the colonial world.
Bosoms recall that at first next to the estates had "almost ghost communities" where he lived "very elderly people and children" but with increased activity the situation changed.
"When we started to work through the hotel, people begin to return and begin to have other needs," he adds.
Since the Plan purchased the first farm in 1996 driving the model is to be near the community where they are and try to improve her living conditions.
Today contracted to 98% of its workforce in the communities where staff are in the region, and support business co-operatives and local residents, mostly Mayan women.
The Mexican henequen haciendas lived its glory from 1830 to the second quarter of last century when the advent of synthetic fibers ended in the wealth generated by the henequen or "green gold", a plant fiber used to make rope Yucatan made one of the richest parts of Mexico.
The material was used to make bags to transport grain and other grains but was eventually replaced by synthetics.
Currently, the circuit has three farms located in the state of Yucatan, Temozon, San Jose and Santa Rosa, and two more, and Uayamon Puerta Campeche, located in the neighboring state of Campeche, all in the Yucatan peninsula.