Inkaterra won five prizes in Condé Nast Traveler’s 2020 Readers’ Choice Awards, the prestigious survey where voters weigh in on their favorite hotels around the globe. For the 33rd edition of the Readers’ Choice Awards, Cusco’s Inkaterra La Casona was named South America’s fifth best hotel, and for its fourth consecutive year appears among winners in the 50 Best Hotels in the World category (#27).

Additionally, Sacred Valley’s Inkaterra Hacienda Urubamba is named the 4th Best Resort in South America’ and the 39th Best Resort in the World, while Inkaterra Machu Picchu Pueblo Hotel achieved the 17th position among the Best Hotels in South America. “We are delighted and humbled by the generosity of Condé Nast Traveler’s readers,” declared Inkaterra founder & CEO José Koechlin. “Coming in a challenging year, this acknowledgement is a great motivation to keep inspiring travelers and advancing ecotourism –a concept pioneered by Inkaterra since 1975– as a means towards sustainable development across Peru.”

“Cusco’s architectural heritage of Incan stone walls topped with colonial white stucco is echoed in this 16th-century building, on a square near the main plaza,” the Condé Nast Traveler editorial staff raves about Cusco’s first 5-star boutique hotel and Peru’s first-ever Relais & Châteaux property. “Owners Denise and Joe Koechlin have fussed over every antique- and craft-strewn square foot of the place, and exquisite pillars, retablos, and benches have been sourced from all over Peru, including Pre-Colombian textiles and murals. The excellent restaurant—don’t leave without trying the quinoa pancakes—delivers a generous helping of Andean hospitality.”

Winners are now online and will soon appear in the upcoming issue of Condé Nast Traveler magazine.

JOSÉ KOECHLIN IS KEYNOTE SPEAKER
IN SAHIC AND PACIFIC ALLIANCE CONFERENCES

Inkaterra founder and chairman José Koechlin spoke about the hotel brand’s pioneering approach to ecotourism at the latest SAHIC Virtual Conference (October 5-6) and PromPeru’s webinar on the future of the tourism industry across the Pacific Alliance (October 7).

The SAHIC conference, “Opening Boundaries to Rebuild and Rethink Our Industry”, gave essential insights and networking opportunities by leaders of the hospitality and tourism development industries in Latin America and the Caribbean. While PromPeru’s Pacific Alliance webinar featured four successful cases to enhance sustainable tourism in the region.

“Since 1975, scientific research as a basis for conservation and sustainability is at the very core of our business,” declared José Koechlin in the Pacific Alliance webinar about Inkaterra, winner of Travel+Leisure’s 2020 Global Vision Award (American Express Group) and alliance member of Relais & Châteaux, Virtuoso and National Geographic Unique Lodges of the World.

Among the organization’s current initiatives, Inkaterra’s founder focused on Sustainable Machu Picchu, a strategic alliance to turn the Wonder of the Modern World into a carbon neutral destination. Additionally, José Koechlin presented the Madre de Dios Sustainable Landscape Corridor, a joint venture with the Smithsonian Institution to restore genetic connectivity in the Peruvian Amazon, and Inkaterra Asociación’s proposal for the declaration of a marine reserve in Cabo Blanco’s Tropical Sea in Northern Peru. “Sustainability is part of Inkaterra’s DNA,” José Koechlin concluded.