Backyard Luxury: Loews Hotels experiments with sourcing locally

Provenance has always been one of the hallmarks of luxury, and in an age of globalization acquiring products from the far ends of the earth has become more attainable. Yet along with the mystique comes an element of mistrust as regulations, quality levels and labor practices differ in foreign countries. As some imported products have become devalued and their total impact upon the environment realized, products historically sourced from a consumer’s own back yard are now gaining the upper hand in luxury status.

Loews Hotels has picked up on the trend by creating the “Adopt a Farmer” program that sources organic, sustainable food from local gardeners and fishmongers. The Loews Miami Beach Hotel features striped bass farmed in the Everglades, while Loews Ventana Canyon Resort in Tucson has created a Desert Tasting Menu of Native American dishes made from ingredients provided by Tohono O’odham Community Action, a not-for-profit collective using age-old desert flood agricultural techniques.

The Coronado Bay Resort in San Diego grows its own vegetables and herbs on the property while procuring the remaining ingredients for its menu offering from a dozen area farms. To complement the program they have created seasonal guest dinners featuring local suppliers who join in the meal and explain their production methods. This brings in another trend in luxury travel, the emphasis upon educational vacations.

What local resources and community members can your hotel partner with to create fresh ways of attracting guests while also being kind to the environment and the bottom line?