Samanea Beach Resort & Spa pioneers sustainable tourism

Every month, Southeast Asia Globe features stories from organisations around the region taking action to reduce plastic use. This month, we highlight Samanea Beach Resort & Spa
Nestled in the largest 2.5 HA botanical garden in the region of Kep, featuring organic plants, vegetable, and fruits for their restaurant, Samanea Beach Resort & Spa has been a pioneer in sustainable tourism. Besides the preservation of their awesome seafront and unique private mangrove, which the guests can safely visit through a dedicated path, the hotel has developed all the techniques to protect the planet. Seventy square meters of solar panel drastically reduce their carbon footprint, reducing by 50% their consumption of electricity. Samanea Beach Resort & Spa have a strict “No Plastic!” policy: using 100% biodegradable water bottles, drinking straws, packaging, and rubbish bags. A gravity system (no pump) draws pure source water from a 70 m deep non-exhaustible stream down the mountain. Still in an ecological concern, all wastewater passes through a system with five settling ponds to meet our needs. The decanted water is discharged into the ground through a system of hose-bores, in order to not contaminate the water table below, as well as the sea water. They have also implemented channels to recover rainwater to water.
Jonathan Manstein, Director of Samanea explains the motivation for this commitment:
“Cambodia is suffering from enormous environmental pollution led by a rapid economic and population growth. Plastic wastage is one of the biggest issues, with most of it ending up in the ocean. Being located on the coast we are seeing huge amounts of single use plastic wastage washed up on our beach and mangrove forest every day. Having our team cleaning it several times per week they get frustrated knowing the next tide will bring in more garbage again. Being able to afford reusable or biodegradable products I believe it’s our responsibility to do so. At the moment we are discussing plans on how we can implement our practices in the outside community and local population, as we believe it starts with the education. An idea is to create a foundation which will be financed through donations, a percentage of our direct bookings as well as private sponsors. Furthermore, we want to strengthen our already existing cooperation with the neighboring Don Bosco School, which is the leading hospitality school in the region to provide even better opportunities for their students. We have experienced a great impact from our approaches towards sustainability. We received incredibly good feedback and hope to make an example of how each resort or business can make this significant and important step.”
That being said, don’t look further: Samanea Beach Resort & Spa is THE leading sustainable luxury tourist hotel in the natural and glamorous “Cambodian Riviera”. Come to visit their property here: https://www.samanea-resort.com/
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