Coulibri Ridge Resort, in the Caribbean | Daniel Langlois’ eco-responsible hotel finally opens

After twenty years of research, a major hurricane and a pandemic, the hotel dream of Quebec entrepreneur and philanthropist Daniel Langlois is officially taking off. By operating a luxury hotel in the Caribbean that is self-sufficient, respectful of the environment and the community, the businessman wishes to lay the foundations of a future model for tourism. Interview.

Perched atop a mountain ridge in southern Dominica near Soufriere Bay, the Coulibri Ridge Resort is where Daniel Langlois now spends much of his time.

Since he and his partner Dominique Marchand set foot for the first time, in 1997, on this little known island, located between Guadeloupe and Martinique, they have been working to develop a hotel there with the smallest possible footprint on its environment. . An “extreme” project, recognizes Mr. Langlois, but commensurate with this entrepreneur who, when he was named Personality of the Year The Press in 1995, said he dreamed of owning at least one mountain that he would protect from everything and everyone.

The result of a long process of reflection and experimentation, the Coulibri Ridge Resort welcomed its first guests last year, without fanfare. A way to test the self-sufficiency in electricity and drinking water of this hotel complex of 14 suites. “You never know until you have tested it in reality, but it was conclusive, assures Daniel Langlois in a telephone interview. We had to make a few small technological adjustments, but very few. Thus, the hotel, which is one of the winners of the 16^are Grands Prix du design, was able to officially open its doors on October 22, attracting the attention of international media.

Established on 285 acres, the Coulibri Ridge Resort is a collection of stone villas comprising suites with an area of ​​600 sq.ft.^⁠2 at 1000 ft^⁠2, divided into four categories of rooms (from US$700 per night). There is a gym, two meeting rooms, free WiFi, and a farm where some of the food served in the two restaurants is grown.

Built outside the limits of the electricity network, the complex produces all the energy necessary for its operation, or even more (150 kWh in total), using solar panels, installed on the roof of each building, as well as two vertical axis wind turbines. It also collects rainwater which is filtered, then purified by UV and stored in reservoirs housed mostly underground. This water is then used for the consumption of the guests, the kitchen, the laundry, the agriculture and the supply of the six infinity pools… heated!

Live well, off the grid

“The project here is to be not connected to a network and to manage to do more than just survive, to manage to live well, even to live very well”, emphasizes Daniel Langlois. It is to push this concept further that his research project has become one of a hotel, a luxury one to boot, with the energy consumption that this implies.

The hotel has an energy autonomy of three days, in the event of a lack of sunlight. To accumulate the water needed for its activities, it closes two months a year, at the height of the rainy season.

This ambitious idea, which was even more so at the end of the 1990s, germinated in the mind of Daniel Langlois when he was about to leave Softimage, the 3D software company he founded and sold to Microsoft in 1994 for around 200 million.

Thus, in 1997, when he set up the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science and Technology, this design and architecture enthusiast found in the island of Dominica the ideal territory to carry out his experiments. . Above all, he was looking for a place where the environment would be “completely present at all times, so that you realize that when you live correctly, you can protect it”.

This is what he found in this very mountainous island where 74,000 people live. Dominica, for him, is also the Dominicans. Some were trained to work on the hotel, others to erect it. “The hotel was built entirely by training employees from the island. It extended the construction time of the project by probably four to five years! “says Mr. Langlois.

the hurricane maria and resilience

Then came the hurricane maria, in 2017, a few months before the planned opening. If the hotel, built to withstand such disasters, suffered no damage, this is not the case for the nearest villages (Soufrière, Gallion and Scotts Head), which were destroyed. Its inhabitants lived there without electricity for a year and a half. Even more convinced of the importance of focusing on the development of resilient infrastructures, Daniel Langlois put his hotel project on hold and created the REZDM program, within his foundation, to which he still devotes most of his time today. time.

For him, the future of tourism inevitably passes through projects like the Coulibri Ridge. After a visit to the hotel in December 2021, the Prime Minister of Dominica, Roosevelt Skerrit, said on Twitter that “this super luxurious resort brings a new dimension to the hotel industry in Dominica”.

The entrepreneur also says he is aware that the clientele he is targeting is not necessarily one that seeks to reduce his own. Going to Coulibri Ridge by private jet, wouldn’t that be missing the mark? “It is certain that the first clientele for this hotel has no problem traveling by private jet. We try to discourage that kind of travel because there are other ways to get there. But these people come here and leave with a different level of education. He points out, however, that the majority of hotel guests use scheduled flights.

He also cherishes the desire to make this “place of reflection” accessible to as many people as possible. Above all, he wants to show that it is possible. With Dominica’s high electricity costs, he estimates it will only take five years to recoup the extra money invested in renewable energy generation and water harvesting.

If, as a traveller, he is now looking for hotels that follow this approach, it is “so that one day we can reach a balance where there will be enough of these hotels that we have encouraged so that everyone the world wants to do the same”.