The Schoolhouse At Mutianyu (in both pictures) is a tourism company situated at Mutianyu village right next to
the Great Wall of China. The company is created by China Bound Ltd. and consists of three restaurants, nine (soon to be ten) rental houses and a glass studio. Two inns are also under construction. I am a tourism student and I'm currently doing my internship here, with great pleasure. The business philosophy of The Schoolhouse is sustainable tourism. Yes, it is a trendy word nowadays, but here sustainability is more than a buzzword, which makes it great to work here. Here they use existing buildings, hire and train local people and support other village businesses, source ingredients locally and make food totally homemade from scratch. The management takes into concideration the ecological, economical as 
well as social aspects of sustainability. The main building, The Schoolhouse, is built into an abandoned elementary school and most of the rental houses are built into old run-down peasant houses. The company really puts effort to achieve sustainable tourism, keeping in mind the main principles of good business behaviour – respecting people, operating legally and ethically, and providing customers with pleasant experiences. To The Schoolhouse a big part of sustainability is social. They are interested in development that preserves the sense of the vernacular community and its history. They believe that small-scale development provides better opportunities for rural neighbors than large-scale projects, which tend to displace people and make them strangers in their own land. For more information about the company, visit www.theschoolhouseatmutianyu.comThe Schoolhouse has already been awarded three Green Stars from Eco Hotels of the World, which is a comprehensive independent guide to the greenest hotels and lodges on the planet. This tells something about the work here. For more information about this rating, visit http://www.ecohotelsoftheworld.com/the-schoolhouse-rental-homes-4.html. The work is never done and we here are always trying to get better and more sustainable, and this year we are undertaking a project to create a Sustainable Food Program, which is my major assignment during the internship, in addition to operational assistance. This blog is about the process of getting there. The project is still at the very beginning, but the goal is that in a while the restaurants of The Schoolhouse will be as sustainable as possible when it comes to food production, waste management etc. Obviously, sustainable foods will be a part of our marketing and our product, something of a competitive advantage - that is one part of the project as well.
If you are interested in this project and sustainability in tourism as a whole, follow this blog and we’ll keep you updated how things are going.
Pietari Sajaniemi, an intern at The Schoolhouse at Mutianyu.
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