Bangkok--2 Oct--Laguna Phuket
“Seedlings Phuket” to be Laguna Phuket’s First Social Enterprise Restaurant
Yesterday (Wednesday, 1 October) at 2014 IT&CMA’s Media Briefing Session, Laguna Phuket’s Managing Director Ravi Chandran and Prae Sunantaraks, Director of Community Relations, addressed members of the press on the resort’s latest developments in MICE and CSR.
The Session, attended by 40 international and local media, started at 9.30am by Mr. Chandran who gave the media a briefing on Laguna Phuket MICE.
With a collection of deluxe hotels and villa properties, an expansive central functions venue, corporate team building facility, dedicated tours company and other attractions including an 18-hole resort golf course, five luxury award-winning spas and boutique shopping, Laguna Phuket is a MICE destination like no other.
Set on 1,000 acres of lush tropical beachfront parkland on the northwest coast of the paradise Thai island, just 30 minutes from Phuket International Airport, Laguna Phuket is renowned as Asia’s first integrated resort.
Its hotels offer a variety of MICE facilities, while the central Latitude venue is capable of hosting a wide variety of meetings and incentive programmes, conferences, gala dinners and other events in a spectacular waterside setting.
In April and May 2012, the resort’s MICE credentials were taken to a new level when Phuket’s biggest-ever corporate gathering was hosted on property by an international corporation from China. The leadership seminar involved 15,000 delegates in a month-long rolling programme of activities.
April 2013 saw Laguna Phuket played a major role in another record-breaking annual incentive programme for 4,000 delegates and staff of anti-aging products company NU SKIN Greater China, which generated a business boom for Phuket and Thailand.
This year, Laguna Phuket was selected host venue for national and international MICE & tourism events; TCEB’s Inaugural Domestic MICE Mart (1 August) and the 18th Inter-Islands Tourism Policy Forum (ITOP) attended by leaders from eleven member countries (20-22 August) after having hosted an Asia-Pacific Convention for an international surgeon association, attended by over 700 delegates, in July.
“Laguna Phuket been established as one of Phuket’s most prominent MICE venues,” said Mr. Ravi Chandran, MD of Laguna Resorts & Hotels PLC at 2014 IT&CMA’s media briefing,
“During the past few years, we’ve been receiving questions from the industry and potential MICE clients, especially from those in Australia, whether we do CSR, so it seems to us that CSR is not a trend or business acumen, it is becoming a prerequisite for businesses seeking partners, suppliers, service providers” he continued.
“We spent the past 27 years on CSR, started from the rehabilitation of the Bang Tao Bay from where it was once an abandoned tin mine, declared by the United Nations Development Programme as ‘too environmentally damaged to have any development potential,’ to the beautiful tropical parkland that is Laguna Phuket today,” said Ms. Prae Sunantarak, Laguna Phuket’s Director of Community Relations.
“Since then, Laguna Phuket has continued developing sustainable communities which include initiatives in cultural diversity, social equity, educational empowerment, sports & health promotion, and environmental preservation.”
“Today, we are proud to announce that Laguna Phuket is taking our CSR to the next level as we are launching our very first “Seedlings Phuket,” a social enterprise restaurant which is an 18-month skills training and internship programme providing job opportunities in hospitality for marginalized local youths.”
In addition to Laguna Phuket CSR’s Seedlings Phuket Restaurant, 2015 will also see MICE developments at the resort including a new meeting room at Outrigger Laguna Phuket Beach Resort, the opening of new hotel brand “Cassia” which will add 228 guest rooms to the destination, and a fully-upgraded 18-hole Laguna Phuket Golf Club’s new look to welcome delegates.