How we're kinder
We handpick conscious hotels for conscious travellers.
You might have figured out by now that we’re not your average hotel booking platform. GoKinda brings together the kinda stylish hotels you love, only kinder to people and the planet. We’re all about putting the feel-good factor back into travel.
What we care about
Good intentions
We believe in good intentions over perfection. We seek out hotels that are actively operating kinder.
People
Hotels that consider their social responsibility and care about their local communities are our kinda people.
The planet
We spend a lot of time exploring this beautiful planet, so we want to ensure the hotels we visit are eco-conscious.
Style
That’s right, we’re kinda discerning travellers. We like our hotels to be low on impact and look great too.
How we’re making things easier
It’s kinda hard to find hotels that are stylish and conscious. We make it easy.
The world of eco-certifications for hotels is a complicated one. While many hotels use buzzwords and big claims to suggest they’re eco-friendly, very few stays are actively working to improve their social and environmental impact. And then there’s the hotels doing positive work without publicising these efforts. For those seeking an eco-friendly stay, decoding all of this information can feel overwhelming (and, let’s face it: too hard). That’s why GoKinda favours quality (and honesty) over quantity. Our selection of hand-picked hotels is small, because we want to bring you the best in conscious and stylish stays.
Our founder has nearly 20 years of experience in the travel industry and understands the importance of finding you a hotel that’s more than just a place to sleep. We know travel is about the experience, and where you choose to stay plays a big part in that.
Why we handpick our hotels
We handpick hotels that make you feel all kinds of good.
Every hotel featured on our website is chosen for its commitment to operate more responsibly. Our hotels are conscious of their social and environmental impacts, and strive to do better.
Not only do we source information from hotels directly, from our own travel experiences and from our community’s experiences, but we also use external sources to ensure – to the best of our knowledge – our hotels are kinder to people and the planet.
Our kindness calibre
The nitty-gritty on how we select our hotels.
Our values align with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council (GSTC), a council responsible for creating and managing global standards for sustainable travel and tourism. (These are known as the GSTC Criteria).
The four pillars that inform these standards, which we use to guide our hotel choices, include:
- Sustainable management
- Socioeconomic impacts
- Cultural impacts
- Environmental impacts
You’ll notice that hotels that have opted to be formally recognised for their conscious efforts by a third-party certifier (with standards recognised by the GSTC) will appear on our website with an additional ‘certified’ tag. This means that the hotel’s operations uphold these four pillars.
Learn more about the GSTC here
Of course, not all eco-conscious hotels choose to be certified (this can be a costly and lengthy process). But we believe progress is better than perfection, so we consider each stay based on its individual commitment to become better. We trust the information provided to us is accurate. We look for the good and those taking steps in a kinder direction.
When you choose your hotels through GoKinda you’re not only calling for hotels to do better, you’re also protecting 5 trees per booking (which will absorb 975 kilos of carbon by 2030.) Intrigued?
Learn more about our rainforest protection project here
Naturally, our community of travellers is our greatest asset. As our community grows, our travellers will help keep our hotels honest with their feedback. Together, we believe we have the potential to influence more hotels to make an even bigger impact.
What does all of this mean for travellers?
We’ve got you!
We only handpick the kinda stylish hotels that we would stay at ourselves. In fact, we have stayed and plan to stay at many of these hotels ourselves.
It’s time to call off the search for stylish and conscious hotels. We’ve done the deep-dive for you, so all you need to do is hit that ‘book now’ button and pack your suitcase (we’ll leave that part up to you).
