From a deluxe hotel in Bali to a luxury tent camp on the beach in Baja California, a range of resorts, tour operators and other travel businesses are working to sustain their locale's natural beauty through environmental conservation, plus contribute to the local economy by employing local residents and buying local produce, among other things.

Sustainable tourism "minimizes impact on the environment and local culture, while helping to generate income, employment and the conservation of local ecosystems," said Laila Ram, co-founder of i-escape.com, in an e-mail interview. The U.K.-based Web site details unique and unusual destinations worldwide, each reviewed personally by the site's authors.

Sustainable tourism is more than eco-tourism: If you have no desire to see a baboon in its natural habitat or raft down a remote whitewater rapid, but you like the idea of a swank resort that works hard behind the scenes to maintain the cultural and natural beauty of a place, you'll like sustainable tourism.

Here's an example of the difference, Ram said: Grootbos, in South Africa, is "a paradigm of ecotourism, having preserved over 1000 hectares of indigenous milkwood forest and the associated flora and fauna, and now offering expertly guided tours through it, as well as whale watching and horse riding." See i-escape.com's page on Grootbos.

Meanwhile, Kasbah du Toubkal, in Morocco's Atlas Mountains, "takes this a step further, by donating a portion of the room cost to village projects and employing only local staff (right up to the managerial level), in addition to the eco-aspect of offering hiking and nature trips," Ram said. See i-escape.com's page on Kasbah du Toubkal.

Resorts and tour operators which adopt these practices can, in theory, grow forever "without destroying the host environment," Ram said. "The coral reefs on St. Vincent have actually improved since the arrival of Petit Byahaut," a 50-acre retreat on the Caribbean island.

The idea of sustained growth is garnering interest among more travel companies, said Louis D'Amore, founder of the International Institute for Peace Through Tourism, in Stowe, Vt. D'Amore, long involved in researching the tourism industry, wrote the first guidelines on sustainable tourism in 1993.

Tourism "relies on the environment, on nature, on the cities on which it thrives in order to be sustainable in the future, in the long term," he said. Adopting sustainable tourism "is enlightened self-interest for the industry," he said.

Also, hotels and other travel companies find they save money by conserving energy and buying local produce; plus, the happier the local community is with the resort, the better experience tourists will have -- helping to ensure repeat business, D'Amore said.

Your experience at a sustainable resort could run the gamut from a tent on a beach in Baja California to a luxury room at an InterContinental Hotel resort on Tahiti, Moorea or Bora Bora. See the hotel's Web site for its Tahiti location.

Also, see Baja Camp page on i-escape.com.

Then there's Damai Lovina Villas, in Bali, Indonesia, which avoids plastic products and cooks with local produce and food from its own garden. Damai Lovina Villas on i-escape.com.

Or there's Petit Byahaut, on the Caribbean island of St. Vincent. Petit Byahaut on i-escape.com.

Then, Little St. Simon's Island, off the coast of Georgia, is the sole U.S. destination awarded "benchmark" status by Green Globe, which certifies travel companies for practicing sustainable tourism, based on a variety of environmental and economic criteria. See Little St. Simon's Island Web site.

Resorts also range in price, Ram said. "Rooms at Anidri Eco-cottages cost just 40 euros (which is cheaper than equivalent rooms in a simple 'pension' in nearby Cretan towns); a night at Galapita Eco Lodge costs $80 for full board, which is on a par with similar mainstream lodges in Sri Lanka," she said.

See Anidri Eco-cottages page on i-escape.com.

See Galapita Eco Lodge page on i-escape.com.

But "being sustainable often means imposing a limit on visitor numbers (Chumbe Island restricts visitors to 14 on the island at any time), or restricting season length ... all of which push costs up," she said.

Check that certificate.At Green Globe, companies are "benchmarked" if an independent auditor visits the resort to confirm its sustainable tourism practices. A "certified" company has satisfied Green Globe's principles of sustainable tourism, based on documents submitted by the resort, but without that confirmation by an independent auditor. See the Green Globe Web site.

But Green Globe isn't the only organization awarding such certifications -- and different certificates may mean different things. Some "sustainable tourism" claims may mean the business owner has agreed to encourage people to reduce energy by posting signs asking visitors to turn off lights, or asking people to pick up litter, says Ashley Scott, executive director of EarthCheck, an Ontario-based company, spun off from Green Globe, that provides benchmarking services.

"They're all assessing different things, using different ways to prove that what [companies] are saying is correct. It's a real problem. What the consumer lacks is an overarching body that provides a unifying approach," Scott said.

To make matters more confusing, companies don't always advertise their embrace of sustainable tourism principles. "Most of the [companies] who do it don't actually actively promote the fact," he said. "A lot of them do it for their own interest and benefit. You can go to a lot of Web sites in the Green Globe scheme and you'd expect to see it up-front and center but often you don't find it at all," Scott said.

With a bevy of local and regional standards, it's hard to tell how many resorts and hotels are practicing sustainable tourism. But some say it's a growing trend. "Increasingly, the industry is recognizing ... that it has to be sustainable, so all sectors of the industry are doing what they can to be sustainable," D'Amore said. For instance, tour operators in Europe organized the Tour Operators Initiative to promote sustainable tourism practices, in 2000. See Web site (aimed at operators, not travelers).

Plus, some leading international hotel chains, including InterContinental Hotels Group, Hilton and Marriott International created the Tourism Partnership, which was recently updated to include a range of sustainable-tourism principles, D'Amore said. See the Web site.

And, more tourists now are eager for this type of travel, some say. "What people want from a vacation, even at the high end, is experiential travel," said Kathy Sudeikis, president of the American Society of Travel Agents and a travel agent in Mission, Kan.

"They've bought everything they can buy; they've been luxuried to death. What they want is creature comforts but also an experience, and that means meeting the people" and enjoying the culture of a destination, Sudeikis said.

Finding a resort or tour operator practicing these principles is not always easy.

"There's no overarching Web site or tourism company that gives you a list of all products," Scott said. Your best bet, he said, is to search the Internet for "green tourism" and "green travel," he said.

Here are some other helpful sites:

At i-escape.com, click on "places to stay" and then "detailed search." Then at "type of accommodation," insert "eco-lodge." Visit the site.

Green Globe's site allows you to search for resorts and other travel businesses. Click on the "travel" tab on the home page. Visit the site.

D'Amore's group, the International Institute for Peace through Tourism, will offer within a month travel groups embracing sustainable practices. See the group's Web site."