|
14th August, 2008
The ASEAN Tourism Council together with the ten tourism ministries of all the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) recently awarded the prestigious ‘ASEAN Green Hotel Award 2008’ to one of Malaysia’s most environmentally aware resorts, the Frangipani Langkawi Resort & Spa.
The ASEAN Green Hotel Award is awarded to a hotel or resort which is environmentally-friendly and adopts various energy conservation measures based upon a set of pre-determined criteria. These include environmental policies and actions for hotel operations, use of green products, collaboration with the local community and organisations, human resource development, air quality management (both indoor and outdoor), solid waste management, energy and water efficiency, noise pollution control, wastewater treatment and management and, toxic and chemical substance disposal management.
The ASEAN Green Hotel Award is one of six ASEAN Tourism Standards that the ten ASEAN member countries of Malaysia, Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam have considered essential in helping see ASEAN become a single travel destination of quality.
The presentation was organised in conjunction with the ASEAN Tourism Forum, and was made to a select group of hotels in the region for being exemplary and environmentally-aware properties. The main objective of the award is to recognise meritorious contributions made by these properties to the hotel industry.
The award also creates awareness amongst hotels and resorts in the region that there are greener operational policies that ultimately reduce the impacts upon the environment. Mr Anthony Wong, Resort Owner said after acknowledging the award: “The Frangipani Langkawi Resort & Spa has implemented various greening programmes to streamline its daily operations and to minimise environmental impacts. Since the resort’s inception in 2006, we set out to implement various policies to reduce our impacts upon the Langkawi environment. Our website proudly list 100 initiatives which we hope will become a model for other resorts to follow”.
Mr Wong remarked that various measures have been introduced at the resort including reducing consumption especially wastage, effectively managing energy usage to reduce wastage, using environmentally-friendly detergents, filtering the resort’s ‘grey water’ through a wetland and working with the local authorities to reduce the amount of rubbish that goes to the island’s limited landfill.
“Everyone in the Frangipani community from the owners to management, staff and guests is encouraged to participate in our programmes and we find that we have the full support of all. Being an island, Langkawi has many sensitive environmental variables that need to be carefully managed if tourism on the island is to be sustainable”, said Mr Wong.
The ASEAN Green Hotel Award 2008 was presented by the Malaysian Minister of Tourism, Datuk Seri Tengku Adnan Tengku Mansor at an awards ceremony in Bangkok. Surin Pitsuwan, the ASEAN Secretary-General, was also present at the awards ceremony.
|
