Golden Buddha Beach Resort

Responsible Tourism

Community and Ecological Sensitivity to Tourism is At the Heart of Golden Buddha Beach

We pride ourselves on our responsible approach to tourism. Simply defined, responsible tourism aims to maximize the positive impacts and to minimize negatives of tourism. We use the Cape Town Declaration (2002) on responsible tourism developed by the international center for responsible tourism as a guide to our approach to responsible tourism.

• Minimise negative economic, environmental and social impacts
• Generate greater economic benefits for local people and enhance the well-being of host communities, improve working conditions and access to the industry.
• Involve local people in decisions that affect their lives and life chances.
• Make positive contribution’s to the conservation of natural and cultural heritage, to the maintenance of the world’s diversity
• Provide more enjoyable experiences for tourists through meaningful connections with local people and greater understanding of local cultural, social and environmental issues.
• Provide access for physically challenged people
• Are culturally sensitive, engender respect between tourists and hosts, and build local pride and confidence.

For a full description of our approach to Responsible Tourism please download our PDF information sheet.

A Golden Buddha View on Responsible Tourism

The definition of an Eco Resort is generally left up to marketing geniuses. For instance, Blue Bamboo Eco Lodge might say, “Only organic soaps and shampoos are used in our facilities.” All the while consuming huge amounts of energy on air conditioning, water features and paying staff below the minimum legal wages and firing them with a day’s notice.

At Golden Buddha Beach Resort we have lived and breathed ecological and community sensitive hospitality for the last 18 years; initially as much by necessity as by design. Located on a remote island with no electric mains, no scheduled boat service and the only village one hour away has ensured that Golden Buddha has become acutely aware of its environment and its importance.

We have a period of 6 months with little rain and a lot of sunshine that brings strong interest from international visitors followed by 6 months of the southwest monsoon with lots of rain and storms. These characteristics lead Golden Buddha Beach to use simple, low impact construction for its 25 individual houses and all communal buildings. The luxury had to be provided nature, not man. Buildings were spaced apart and permitted to comprise no more than 12.5% of any one-rai plot. Building heights were restricted to maintain the spacious feel and emphasize the surrounding rain forests. All buildings were constructed predominantly with plantation sourced tropical hardwoods using local Thai craftsmen.

As all power has to be generated on site, it was obvious that big generators and daily transport of large quantities of fuel were going to be both wasteful and expensive. Thus, the decision was made to rule out the use of air conditioning and hot water showers and excessive electricity. This policy continues to this day.

Golden Buddha hires locally wherever possible. This policy is both is practical and necessary. Who else knows how the island’s community life works? What is acceptable and what is not? Who else knows the local environment and wildlife better? Furthermore, most people on the mainland think it is a bit peculiar to live in such an isolated environment with few urban conveniences. Currently all the staff at Golden Buddha are from Thailand and 90% are from the island or the nearby coastal villages. In addition, where services are available by local businesses, large or small, we use local. The head of the island’s Tapayoi village provides all boat service to and from the resort using energy efficient long tail boats powered by 14 hp engines. Small business operators in Kuraburi town provide ground transportation services for our guests. The closest accountant is in Takuapa and we use her services. It is a symbiotic relationship.

Yet simply hiring local does not mean one is building responsible tourism on Koh Phra Thong. It takes much more. All of our staff are paid significantly above the legal minimum and we pay their taxes and social insurance. They all get paid legal holidays and vacation pay. Unlike many Thai hotel operators, we try to provide year around employment to staff that want it. When we are not busy with guests, they take their holidays and visit family, and at the resort do maintenance, plant trees and carry out other rainy season tasks.
Training is another important contribution to the local staff on the island. Our training is heavy on skills for the hospitality industry and English language. Other training is more specialized such as food management, hygiene, carpentry, diesel engine maintenance, computer usage and sustainable gardening.

Our environmental policies continue to evolve. They are based on 1) good science, 2) practicality, and 3) guest acceptability. We lose a lot of business by not having air conditioning and hot water, but there are plenty of places for those tourists. Instead, we provide healthy food made with fresh, local ingredients. Electric power is provided from 6pm to 11pm in the houses, which is acceptable for most people. We have two generators of different sizes. Except when the resort is at full capacity with guests we use the smaller one at 2 liters per hours of fuel consumption. That saves 4 liters/hour over the larger one, which is generally only used 20 or so days/year, or as a backup. We don’t power water pumps for swimming pools; rather we provide miles of un-spoiled oceanfront beaches and a calm bay for guests to enjoy in just about any weather condition.

What works in some places doesn’t work in others. Waste material is a problem everywhere. We would like to see everything that comes on the island go off again. Whereas in some communities’ glass beer and soda bottles are recycled, that is not possible here. As recently as 2 years ago the glass bottles were simply being buried after crushing. In 2008 year we realized that beer and sodas in aluminum cans would actually solve an environmental problem for us. Aluminum has commercial value and is purchased locally. We no longer buy any bottles and only get beverages in cans. The result is that our staff collects these from any place they can; from the bar, the houses or those left carelessly on the beach and take them to Kuraburi to sell for some extra money.

Another simple waste management problem has been plastic packaging. Two years ago a businesswoman in Kuraburi that sourced all our vegetables, fruits and meat was using a massive number of disposable plastic bags. We cannot recycle them and the only practical thing to do with them is burn them. We don’t have the complete solution, but we have made great strides. We have reusable plastic boxes and coolers, which go back and forth to her business. She packs them up and sends them to the pier and they return to the island. What plastic packaging does come to the island now goes back to the mainland for proper disposal.

Since our island is virtually all sand and poor in biological carbon, we are able to benefit by any and all food scraps which are composted along with grass clippings, coconut branches and other natural trash. During the rainy season our staff utilize the compost in our gardens. These vegetables and fish they catch after work make a substantial contribution to wholesome staff meals for almost six months each year.

At Golden Buddha we do care about the environment, our staff and the local community. And, of course, we care about our guests. After all, we are in the hospitality business. Guests want to relax and enjoy the local surrounding without hardship.

We are believers in science. It can have bad uses or good uses. We will continue to explore ways to use wastewater for our gardens, solar for power and lower energy techniques to purify water. We are not too sanguine about making ice in the resort. The laws of thermodynamics are not very forgiving and it simply takes a lot of energy to cool water from 25 C to -4 C with current technology.

We are sure there are more great ideas to come and we welcome all suggestions in our quest to constantly improve and remain sensitive to the local community and ecology.