Lapa Rios 2003/2004 Certificate for Sustainable Tourism
5 Leaf Award Winner

About the Certificate for Sustainable Tourism For many years, Lapa Rios has been a great supporter of the ICT's Certification for Sustainable Tourism (CST) program in Costa Rica. The program evaluates a property's sustainability level by awarding one to five leaves as awards. When the hotel was evaluated first in 2001 Lapa Rios received a four out of five leaf ranking. Back then, no hotel qualified for the maximum five leaf award. In August 2003, the hotel was reevaluated and in October 2003, as the first hotel in Costa Rica, was upgraded to the five leaf level.

We are proud to continuously show our committement to conservation and sustainability and invite you to learn more abou the CST at here.

Trips are done to the Carbonera School (built and donated to the community by Lapa Ríos)	Guests are invited to play with the kids and to teach them games to create a cultural interchange
All of our tours have naturalists guides from the area to teach guests about our flora and fauna
Trash from guest room is separated in their respective containers by guests or housekeeping staff	Lapa Rios is preparing a brigade for emergencies
Our plant a tree tour creates awareness with our guests while at the same time reforests secondary areas in the project	Endemic plants in our garden are marked so that guests can look at them and learn about them