: Patong Hotel Association

News & Events

The Tourism Authority of Thailand (Southern Division 4), in association with Patong Hotel Association (PHA) and Jung Ceylon Shopping Complex launched "Be Clean, Be Love for Patong Beach", a campaign to encourage Phuket locals and tourists to use fabric bags (instead of plastic) to help reduce global warming and preserve the environment, said Miss Runjuan Tongrut, The Tourism Authority of Thailand Director's assistant.

The aim of this campaign was to both help reduce plastic waste and bring about awareness of the problem of global warming and its consequences, such as flooding and other natural disasters which are a result of the melting of the polar ice. The ever-increasing use of plastic bags causes a major waste problem in large cities throughout Thailand. Patong is no exception to this, as it has a large population combined with the burgeoning tourist visitors. If we are able to somehow help reduce the use of plastic bags, then it would be of great benefit to the local environment. This was the reason that made the PHA joined hand with other local organizations to come up with a solution to the problem. Thus, the campaign "Be Clean, Be Love for Patong Beach" was born.

The group came up with an idea of producing fabric bags to distribute to tourists as the main target, with the hope that they'll be the trend-setters. The bag can be used stylishly to carry purchased goods and well as items to bring along to the beach. The goals being to raise awareness of global warming, physically reduce the use of plastic bags, and bring awareness of the organizations that are involved with the campaign. We also hope that with the success of the campaign, it will encourage other organization to bring about similar efforts to reduce environmental problems.

Miss Runjuan revealed that the production of these fabric bags was a result of the involvements of 6 different organizations with a starting budget of 300,000 Bath to produce 5,000 bags. Once produced, all the bags will be distributed to the associated hotels and any other hotels that are interested in getting involved. The hotels in turn will provide these bags for tourist to use free of charge at the service counter. Tourists can pick one up and when done using, they need to return it for others to use. Currently there are 30 hotels involved with this campaign.

" Miss Runjuan said "We believe that in the beginning, what will be apparent is that it will show the unity and care of all the involving local organizations in reducing environmental problems. With Phuket having a local population of more than 400,000 and over 5 million tourists, and if these visiting tourists can see that the locals really cares about protecting the environment, it will also encourage them to take a personal action in helping out with the effort, especially in using less plastic bags. It will also create a positive image of Patong Beach as a whole, for being a place that cares about its environment".

Mr.Krisada Tunsakul, President of Patong Beach Hotel Association states, "This campaign couldn't be successful if we did not have the cooperation and support of our 30 member hotels in Patong Beach". At the same time, Mr.Prawit Junlayasittikul, VP Juncylon Complex Patong Beach, states "Juncylong Complex sees the benefit and the important to help reduce global warming." Mr. Prawit has helped launched many activities and events to help build awareness of the global warming campaign since last year. These included such activities such as painting competition for teenager, poster competition, as well as creating awareness amongst the schools in the Patong area. In addition to this, Jung Ceylon Complex also produced Jung ceylon Shopping Bag or CSR under the campaign "Save The Andaman Sea" with the cooperation of restaurants and shops of Patong. The campaign targeted teenagers, tourists and local people alike. The campaign to save the turtle will also be launched in association with the Navy on Feb 29, 2008.

For this campaign, "Be Clean Be Love for Patong Beach", Jung Ceylon also gives full support to help build the much needed awareness to keep Phuket as a clean and beautiful tourist destination. Currently there are more than 25,000 tourists visiting Jung Ceylon per day during the low season, and more than 40,000 in the high season. With the high number of visitors, Jung Ceylon is inspired to further promote the campaign with the use of fabric bags (instead of plastic) to 300 additional stores in the Jung Ceylon Shopping Complex in the near future.