Fairmont Mara Safari Club

Enjoy a luxurious stay in one of the Riverfront Double Tents, furnished with large four-poster beds, dressing tables, hand-woven rugs and electrical lamps. Tea and coffee making facilities will be provided, as well as a safe for valuables, and power outlets – perfect for keeping your camera fully charged. Guests can choose between having one queen-size bed or two, and will have their own en-suite bathroom.

The bathrooms feature rain showers and have both cold running water and solar-heated water. The tents are positioned on elevated decks, with a private verandah out the front. Here, you can gaze upon the sweeping views of the Mara River and its surrounding landscape. Watch the crocodiles and hippos from the comfort of your own room.

The Riverfront Deluxe Tents feature a queen-size four-poster bed with plush pillows and soft linen. The spacious rooms include dressing tables, hand-woven rugs and electrical lamps. Tea and coffee making facilities will be provided, along with a safe for your valuables, and power outlets – perfect for keeping your camera fully charged. The deluxe tents also feature en-suite bathrooms with a large bathtub for relaxing in.

The bathrooms have access to both cold running water and solar-heated water, and outside, you will find a refreshing outdoor rain shower. The tents are positioned on elevated decks and lead out to a large verandah. Here, you can sit back and enjoy the sweeping views of the Mara River and its surrounding landscape from the shade provided by the riverine trees. Sit out under a canopy of shining stars and enjoy the sounds of the wilderness.

Fairmont Mara Safari Club offers guests a choice of dining options. In the main building, you will find the Osotua Restaurant, where breakfast, lunch and dinner are served. The menu features a range of dishes from Africa, Europe and Asia, and all meals are freshly prepared using local produce and vegetables and herbs from the club’s garden. Guests can choose to sit indoors or out on the decked verandah that overlooks the river.

There are also options for enjoying dinner out in the bush. Enjoy a barbeque dinner cooked on an open fire, or a breakfast of pastries and fresh juice on a morning game drive. Fairmont’s Lounge and Bar is a perfect spot for guests to delight in evening cocktails beside a crackling fire. The bar also serves tea, coffee, wine and beer, and guests can indulge in afternoon tea between 3 and 6 pm.

Embark on an exciting game drive across the Maasai Mara in a specially-designed safari vehicle, and view amazing creatures including the Big 5. Fairmont’s professional guides will be able to teach you fascinating facts about the animals that live in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve and show you the best places to spot animals from.

Night drives are also available, allowing guests to find some of the Maasai Mara’s nocturnal species that cannot be found during the day. Search through the gloom with a spotlight, or venture out under the light of a full moon, and find adorable bush babies, porcupines, civet cats and aardwolves. Some predators, like Leopards, are most active when the sun goes down and guests will have the chance to watch them stalking through the darkness.

The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge is working with an organic family farm. The hotel’s kitchen donates used cooking oil which is then used to power the farm’s bio-diesel equipment. Over 40 Fairmont hotels are finding ways to donate, use or sell used cooking oil and kitchen grease which would otherwise be disposed of.

‘Anywhere from 60 to 100 gallons of used kitchen oil will be supplied per week to the partnering farm, who additionally has committed to supplying The Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge with all of the hotel’s organic vegetables.’

Fairmont Peace Hotel supports the ‘Million Tree Project,’ and has planted over 2000 trees as part of Roots and Shoots’ initiative in what is now known as ‘Fairmont Forest’ in Mongolia. Fairmont and Roots and Shoots also collaborated, holding an event where local residents could learn about the hotel’s environmental practises, holding behind-the-scenes tours of the Peace Hotel and allowing guests to see how Fairmont works with partners to reduce their impact on the planet. Roots and Shoots gave a presentation, allowing guests to see the projects that they are part of and how they can get involved.

‘Fairmont Peace Hotel also launched a “Greening at Peace” package to provide guests with the opportunity to offset their travel emissions and bring about a positive impact on the environment. For each guest who stayed with the Greening at Peace room package, Fairmont Peace Hotel donated 10 trees on behalf of the guest – including planting and maintenance of the trees for 10 years.’

The planting of trees helps to offset carbon emissions generated by guests when they travel to other countries, and by the running of the hotels.

Fairmont Hotels is part of Plant 21, Accor’s environmental and sustainability initiatives. This is a series of projects that encourages guests, hotel workers, partners and property developers to work to support local communities and reduce their impact on the environment.

‘Programs addressing reforestation, water conservation, energy savings and food waste reduction are an integral part of our hospitality DNA. As we look to the future, our hotels pledge to continue promoting long-term sustainability and stewardship in each of our communities.’

‘Our guests actively support our efforts through water and energy conservation. They may reuse towels or choose to participate in local stewardship projects. We choose partners who share our vision and ideals, such as BMW. And we work in concert with our local communities as volunteers for environmental clean-up days, food drives and organic gardening efforts.’

Fairmont created the Bee Sustainable program, a project that focuses on supporting honey bees through habitat protection, monitoring their health, and the pollination of gardens and flowers. They started building safe habitats for mason bees in 2014, using sticks or logs which were drilled with holes that provided a safe place for the bees to nest. Fairmont is working in collaboration with Pollinator Partnership, who are leaders in the protection of bees, pollinators and their ecosystems.

‘Fairmont is proud to partner with like-minded organizations to find inclusive, sustainable hospitality solutions. One of the most visible is our joint effort with Pollinator Partnership. We’re committed to providing financial support, raising awareness and creating and maintaining apiaries and wild bee “hotels”.’

‘Our newest initiative is a digital pilot at five of our hotels. We’ve installed cameras and hive-tracking devices. This state-of-the-art technology tracks the number of visiting bees and the distance they travel each day. We collect data on the honey and analyze the flower, tree and plant nectars the bees prefer. Then we compare this data to the classification of colour and grade of the honey according to the Pfund scale. This is just one more way Fairmont Hotels and Resorts is leading the way in hospitality sustainability.’

Fairmont works to reduce their impact on the environment by reducing their consumption of energy and water, reduce waste and minimising carbon emissions.

‘Our colleagues embrace sustainable practices designed to reduce and lessen the impact of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions on a local and global scale. Each hotel monitors, measures, and reports on their GHG emissions. This is one reason why we embrace technology and actively seek to change ingrained behaviours. Our efforts are focused on diverting waste from landfills, recycling, and donating or selling used cooking oil and grease to be turned into biodiesel. Together, each action contributes to a healthier environment for future generations.’

Fairmont is helping to support bat populations at their Chateau Whistler site by creating ‘bat hotels’ at their golf course. The bat hotels protect the bats, giving them somewhere to live and reducing the risks posed by humans. Bat populations have decreased significantly and it is important to provide them with a safe home. In return, the bats keep the number of insects from growing too high. This benefits guests, farmers and gardeners in the local community.

Chateau Whistler has also created bear corridors to prevent passing bears from running into golfers, and have made an artificial marsh that caters as a home for a resident beaver.