Staying up to date on sustainability at the annual PHIST – Sustainable tourism event
The annual PHIST (Phuket Hotels for Islands Sustaining Tourism) event was held at Saii Laguna at Bangtao Beach, Phuket on the 4th of September 2023. Elephant Hills’ team focusing on sustainability at our resorts has been attending this remarkable event several times since 2018, and this year was no exception. The largest sustainable tourism event in South-East Asia was arranged by Phuket Hotels Association, Greenview and C9 Hotelworks for the sixth time, and once again managed to exceed expectations.
Over the course of 6 years since its establishing, PHIST has grown into a versatile community where everyone is welcome to give their input and ask, share experiences and best practices and even failures they learned from, on multiple aspects of sustainability in the hospitality sector. This event brings together experts of waste management, renewable energy, water and energy conservation, green finance, organic farming, circular economy and many more.
This year, despite the torrential rain causing huge traffic tailbacks on Phuket’s roads, over 1000 delegates from hotels and tourism operators attended the event. A massive 19 workshops were held, with 66 speakers from all over Asia and over 30 exhibitors presenting their services and products helping the hospitality industry to implement sustainable initiatives.
Opportunities for hoteliers to enhance their sustainability strategy
The exhibitors ranged from energy solutions and consultation services to suppliers providing environmentally friendly cleaning products, construction materials, reef safe sunscreen and industrial composters. Local organic farmers and foundations tackling plastic waste and operating a food rescue system were also presenting their inspirational work.
The versatility and amount of information really stirred the participants’ imagination with environmental possibilities. It was nice to see that like us at Elephant Hills, many delegates had traveled to the event not only from Phuket, but also from surrounding provinces in Southern Thailand to learn more about sustainable hotel and tourism operations.
We have been on our sustainability journey for quite a while now and will never stop educating ourselves and learning about the latest innovations and possibilities. It makes us very pleased to see so many like-minded fellow hoteliers and tourism operators gather with sustainability professionals, everyone sharing the same goal of taking care of the environment and acting now. This inspiring event gave us some new ideas and connections, and we look forward to continuing working to lower our impact and sharing the updates with you!
