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Dusit Resort hosts 2007 Green Leaf initiatives meeting

New year gift in the form of Friendship Bridge for Mekong tourism2

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Dusit Resort hosts 2007 Green Leaf initiatives meeting

In the photo, from left to right: Ploenpis Meunpol, Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT) Representative; Ratchaneewan Rattanawirakul, committee member; Pongsathon Katesumlee, TAT Representative; Yaowalak Hotarapawanont, committee member; Dr. Chirapol Sintunawa, Vice-President of Green Leaf Foundation; Dr. Suvit Yodmanee, President of Green Leaf Foundation; Chatchawal Supachayanont, Vice-President of Green Leaf Foundation; Wiwat Pongbooranakitt, Vice-President of Green Leaf Foundation; Chatra Chaiyanam, committee member; and Wantanee Katephasuk, committee member

The Green Leaf Foundation, led by Dr. Suvit Yodmani, Minister of Tourism and Sports recently held its annual committee meeting at the Dusit Resort, Pattaya. Dr. Suvit and the committee were welcomed by the hotel’s general manager Chatchawal Supachayanont, also vice-president of the Green Leaf Foundation.
The meeting was organized to create a roadmap for the organization’s environmental initiatives and direction in 2007. The meeting also outlined the cooperation from government agencies and private institutions to achieve the foundation’s goals next year. Green Leaf Foundation’s smoke-free program for hotels was also in the agenda as it is gaining support from the hospitality industry with more than 60 smoke-free hotels now in Thailand.
The meeting was attended by Tourism Authority of Thailand representatives, and the vice-presidents and committee members of the foundation.
Green Leaf Foundation is a non-profit organization that promotes the development of environmental excellence in the tourism industry. Green Leaf has 200 member hotels and is supported by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, Thai Hotels Association, United Nations Environment Program, Demand Side Management Office of Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand, Association for the Development of Environmental Quality, and the Metropolitan Waterworks Authority.

New year gift in the form of Friendship Bridge for Mekong tourism

By Satish Gupta (eTN Asia)
The recent introduction of the second Friendship Bridge between Thailand and Lao PDR is expected to provide a major fillip to tourism ties to and within the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS).
According to Tourism Authority of Thailand (TAT), linking the Lao province of Savannakhet with northeastern Thailand’s Mukdahan province, the second Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge is a key component of a major economic and infrastructure development plan to facilitate transportation, trade, investment, and tourism in the Mekong area.
The second 1.6-kilometer, two-lane bridge was funded via loans from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC) to the tune of 4,011 million yen (US$33.7 million) to the Lao PDR and 4,079 million yen (US$34.3 million) to Thailand. It was JBIC’s first Overseas Development Assistance loan for a cross-border infrastructure development embracing two countries.
The first Thai-Lao Friendship Bridge over the Mekong linking the Thai province of Nong Khai and the Lao PDR capital of Vientiane was opened in 1994 with Australian funding.
Thai Prime Minister Surayud Chulanont said the bridge would foster intra-regional trade and investment, facilitate travel to Myanmar and Vietnam and “in the future help to extend the corridor to China, Korea, India and Bangladesh.”
Lao Prime Minister Bouasone Bouphavanh said the bridge was important to a landlocked country such as Lao PDR, and would enable it to boost the potentiality for transport services and expand trade and tourism with its neighbors.
According to TAT, the route connecting Vietnam and Savannakhet has been improved in the past through assistance from multilateral agencies and Japan. In Thailand, JBIC has financed improvement work on existing national highways that are part of the East-West Corridor. The new bridge will connect all these routes.
Although the bridge has international border control checkpoints, visitor flows will only begin after the relevant agreements are finalized between Thailand and Lao PDR. Cars traveling across the bridge will be charged 50 baht each and larger trucks, 350 baht. The two provinces that will certainly benefit on both sides of the river are Savannakhet and Mukdahan, where the people share a lot of cultural, historical and ethnic heritage.
In January-March 2006, overland Lao PDR arrivals to Thailand totaled 38,269, up 45.27 percent over the same period of 2005.

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