BANGKOK, 22 November 2019: Anurak Community Lodge located in the Khao Sok national park area in southern Thailand has become the first accommodation to be Travelife certified.
The 20-unit ecolodge, which opened in 2016, received its certification 15 November after complying with Travelife’s rigorous Gold Certificate criteria.
These include minimising environmental impact, recording and reducing energy consumption, respecting labour and human rights, maintaining health and safety standards, encouraging community integration, working with appropriate suppliers, and inspiring guest participation in onsite sustainability initiatives.
All the measurements are recorded in publicly available sustainability reports by Anurak Lodge to ensure ongoing Travelife compliance.
Travelife started in 2007. It now helps 1,500 hotel members mostly in Europe to improve their environmental, social and economic impacts. Members that meet a specified standard receive Travelife Gold Certification.
“We support a thorough, international standard certification for hotels in Asia, so we chose Travelife, for its rigorous standards,” said George Newling-Ward, the Anurak Community Lodge manager.
Since opening, Anurak has adopted principles of reducing, reusing, and recycling. Key aspects of its sustainability commitment include the banning of single-use plastic and styrofoam and the creation of a recycling station and composting zone. Greywater from the laundry is filtered and used on the ecolodge’s “Rainforest Rising” project, which, over the long-term, will return 3,300 square metres of oil palm plantation to native vegetation cover.
“We are delighted that Anurak Community Lodge has achieved Travelife Gold Certification,” said Travelife’s commercial director Carolyn Wincer. “Anurak Community Lodge joins 900 properties around the world that have used Travelife to verify their commitment to operating responsibly independently.”
Travelife certification comes after Anurak won the 2019 SKAL Asian Area Award in the environmental category in June. In August, the ecolodge was listed among 36 of the world’s leading green lodges and hotels in the National Geographic Traveller (UK) invitation-only Earth Collection. In September, Anurak won the global 2019 SKAL Sustainable Tourism Award in the rural accommodation category.
Anurak Lodge was conceived and built, and now run, by YAANA Ventures, a Bangkok-based owner, partner and operator of entrepreneurial and responsible travel industry ventures across Asia.
The certified lodge, on the edge of Khao Sok National Park, offers a range of ecotourism packages from two to four nights. Activities include hiking, rafting, kayaking, forest cooking, and boat trips on nearby Cheow Larn Lake, with its spectacular limestone cliffs rising sheer from the water’s surface. Located a 75-minute drive from Surat Thani airport and two hours and 30 minutes from Phuket airport, Anurak Community Lodge the 20-key lodge offers deluxe green, eco double, eco twin, and deluxe jungle tent options. Surrounded by limestone karst scenery, the lodge is an ideal base to explore adjacent Khao Sok National Park and majestic Chiew Larn Lake.
