We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.

What is your favorite color?

Mine is green. I love green, mostly because of nature, to be honest.

I encourage you, please go ahead and step outside into nature, just for a moment. Can you sense her breathe, feel her light kiss on your skin?

Probably all of us love to travel. To experience and see as much of nature’s beauty as possible.

But by seeing more and more of her you are essentially causing her more and more harm.

Don’t you want to preserve her and keep her looking fresh and alive for generations to come?

We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children.

Shall we consider Green Tourism?

OUR PROJECTS

Responsible green tourism is something that all dedicated travelers should be thinking about.

There are many very creative and fun loving ways to enjoy travelling while acting responsible the same time.

Thailand is a very popular tourist destination. Our yearly arrival numbers are constantly growing. The same time, challenges and environmental issues are increasing, too.

Green Tourism offers and explores new ways to make things work. Even though, they do not always seem to be fitting together at first glance. Green nature and tourism.

Siam Hills Coffee and its employees are very happy about every visitor coming to the beautiful Land of Smiles, namely Thailand. But simultaneously, we are supporting, creating and cooperating in projects and activities.

This commitment will hopefully also make our future generations smile. When they are coming to see our home country.

Essentially, we don’t want to protect the environment. We want to help creating a world where the environment doesn’t need protecting.

Go green! There is no Planet B.  😉

UNDERSTANDING GREEN TOURISM

To travel is the only thing you buy that makes you richer.

Thailand is one of the most popular tourist destinations throughout the world. When people think of Thailand, they imagine white sandy beaches. They picture artful and inspirational temples, colorful and lively markets.

Visitors hope to see and encounter graceful elephants and a lot wildlife and green lush jungle surrounding everything.

About 20% of Thailand’s economy is either indirectly or directly involved in tourism.

Estimates show that 30 million people chose to visit Thailand last year. With the growing Chinese and Indian markets, and the strong and well-established European, American and Latin market, these numbers will even further increase during the next years.

Of course, all of these people come to see the natural and cultural beauties of Thailand.

Sadly, many natural sights, such as the recently closed Maya Bay or the restricted Similan Islands, or also cultural attractions, such as the temple ruins in Ayutthaya, are over-crowded, nowadays.

They can no longer hold up with these massive streams of people.

Around the iconic Maya Bay beautiful corals disappeared in frightening numbers. These days, there is more trash floating around the seas than fish probably.

The solution can not be to cut down and limit tourist numbers. Instead we should make travelers and local tourist communities aware of the issues.

Our goal should be to show how to tackle and solve these challenges.

Too many lives depend on the economic power of tourism.

So let’s not jeopardize these lives and local communities by making short-term decisions. This will neither benefit local people nor the nature.

But let’s help lifting up these people instead.

We can make our travel experiences even more special. They can become memorable and unique in a sustainable and green way.

WHAT IS GREEN TOURISM

Eco Tourism or Green Tourism is the conscious and deliberate effort to minimize impacts of traveling to or in natural areas.

This includes projects and efforts both involving tour operators and guests.

Recent studies show that a significant majority of travelers want to engage more in local conservation. They would like to become part of activities, specifically promoting sustainability.

Green Tourism is already dating back to its early beginnings in the 1980s.

Regardless of what you may prefer to call it, Green Tourism or Eco Tourism, the basic idea is that the travel and tourism industry as a whole should adopt more environmentally friendly practices.

It aims to protect the natural and cultural heritage of a destination.

And it focuses in stronger supporting local communities in general.

CAN IT WORK

Can travel really be sustainable? Can green tourism actually?

That is probably the biggest question everyone is having in mind, when talking about green tourism.

What do you think? Can it actually work?

Or is it just a fancy word and way of thinking? And in the end, it has no substantial background based on it? Should we all just stay home? Is this maybe the only real way?

Does green tourism only work this way? And everything else is just some unrealistic dreaming and hoping for better things?

In our and many others opinion, yes, it can work.

SUSTAINABLE TRAVEL & TOURISM

To answer the question, we first need to look at the original definition of sustainability.

“Being able to meet the needs of present generations without compromising the needs for future generations.”

Sustainability and sustainable development is about creating a balance.

The balance here is recognizing that development and growth can be good. But it is not good, if it’s at the expense of future generations. Our children and their children should not face struggles to find land to live on, resources to live off and jobs to survive on.

At Siam Hills Coffee and in agreement with our partnering projects, we don’t like to pretend that sustainable holidays are really entirely possible. The concept of green tourism clearly acknowledges all circumstances.

Let’s be honest. They are not to a full extend. Unless you walk, swim, cycle, stay in a sustainability built hotel. Additionally, if you only use renewable energy and eat nothing but locally sourced organic food. Then we might have real green tourism.

However, the goal can not be to have unrealistic dreams and ideas. We should sustainability establish a balance between all factors.

Of course, green and sustainable tourism can work.

If operated in a transparent, fair and equal way for everyone involved, people and nature. It can become a more realistic way.

Nowadays, we already know the solutions. We just have to gradually integrate them and head step by step together into a greener future.

SUSTAINABLE GREEN

The protection of nature, social and cultural engagement is the key to preserve the world for future generations.

This is why Siam Hills Coffee supports and initializes projects for a sustainable development in our local regions.

These projects all have different subjects, which you can find below.

Moreover, an important aspect is the education of the people in local communities. These people will carry their knowledge into the family.

In the long run, it can lead to a different and new mind set towards the environment and nature.

A notable first big step towards green tourism.

GREEN SERVICE

The concept stands for managing business in an eco-friendly way.

For example, we can ask and recommend tourists to choose tourism operators that deal in a responsible way with the environment and their employees.

Hotels can encourage their guests to support their green initiatives. By reusing their towels, for example. They could advice to inform their guests to only use napkins when necessary. Switch off light and air-condition, when not needed. And additionally, they could close windows and doors when the air-condition or heater is running.

The more travelers ask for eco -friendly products and services, the more we can influence touristic organizations to change.

We are all responsible to create change, if we want change.

GREEN HEART

Travel the eco-friendly way. Choose the green tourism way.

Buddhism trusts that once you set your mind on something, it can be achieved.

The same belief works for being a green heart.

When you are conscious about your environment. You will find a way to reduce the impact without being told to do so.

In tourism, all involved sectors must be conscious of environmental values and the threats that the travel industry proposes.

Developing a green heart and hereby implementing initiatives to preserve nature and reduce the carbon footprint can be conducted with three factors. Knowledge, understanding and realization.

Knowledge in this case means to inform ourselves of what is going on in the world.

Being informed leads to better understanding of how things are all connected and influenced by each other.

As a result, we all can contribute start exploiting less natural resource. We can adjust our lifestyle to act less polluting.

Eventually, we would hopefully realize the value of water, soil, air and forest.

GREEN LOGISTIC

In short, choose clean vehicles for either short or long excursions.

Thailand more and more encourages eco-friendly projects of transportation.

For example, wherever reliable public transportation is possible, it would be more eco-friendly instead of private transportation.

To travel on bikes through tour or in private is not only nature friendly but healthy the same time.

Avoid rush hours when driving. Turn off the engine when stopping for long. Switch to alternative energy like bio-diesel or ethanol.

These are all great ideas and there are many more.

All of them support the principle concept ideas of green tourism.

GREEN ATTRACTIONS

Sustainable tourism management is committed to an eco-friendly development.

This means, that the focus of tour operators should lie on protecting and preserving the environment. To ensure this, there could be clear guidelines, which lead to reduced greenhouse gas emissions.

The main concern of tourism companies should not just be about the number of tourists they are having and the amount of money they can make.

To be in balance with local traditions and values as well as to respect the nature should be more at focus, in our opinion.

GREEN ACTIVITY

Choose environmentally friendly travel itineraries.

Traveling eco-friendly is fun and at the same time it reduces the impact on the environment. These activities are educational in many aspects as well.

The strong focus in green tourism is on local experiences.

Moreover, it is a way of showing respect to the people and the places visited. On eco-friendly tours tourists also witness locals’ craftsmanship. They can learn how to process the product which is a lot of fun and beneficial to the community.

The joy of achieving something together with locals is a priceless and sustainable experience.

GREEN COMMUNITY

Travel with awareness of value and preserve community identity.

It is up to us to influence.

As we all know tourism can play both the role of creator and destroyer.

Due to mismanagement and exploitation culturally important attractions are treated disrespectful that don’t always benefit the local surroundings and community.

Green tourism aims to protect the richness of the location and local culture as they are the root and soul of the community.

GREEN PLUS

Volunteering brightens the world and care for the environment.

Travel responsibly and give the benefit back to the community.

Volunteering travel helps preserve and revives the surrounding of tourism attractions and its local people. It supports the reduction of the impact of global warming.

The three principles are “Reduce”, “Reuse” and “Recycle”.

This means only to use what is really necessary. Such general mindset in all of our daily lives is central for the entire idea of green tourism.

We should try to avoid consuming excessively and try to reuse and recycle things when possible.

It reduces the cost of living as well as natural resources.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

We are responsible!

Of course, everything is free of choice and totally up to your own wishes.

We would like to recommend you to do some research before traveling.

Choose your activities and tour operators wisely.

Try to become a part of the growing green tourism movement.

Here would be a few fun and sustainable minded activities in Thailand.

There is great Elephant Nature Park in Chiang Mai, Northern Thailand.

Another one would the New Heaven Reef Conservation Program based on the beautiful island of Koh Tao.

Or the Gibbon Rehabilitation Project based in Phuket.

Additionally, there would be the Bangkok Tree House and many more for you to explore and discover.

There are quite a few ways to help while having awesome travel experiences the same time.

If you would like to have a sustainable minded coffee on your way, try our Siam Hills Coffee.

We are also very actively and enthusiastically in many of the above mentioned projects and activities and like to share knowledge and support wherever we can.

OUR OWN MOTTO

Making money is nice, creating and maintaining a sustainable future for every living being involved is a lot more fun!

How about you?

Do you already have any experiences with Green Tourism?

What is your opinion?

What other projects do you find interesting and exciting to support?

Please be so kind to share with us.

We are always eager and fascinated to learn and grow more. J