Book a Villa = Plant a Tree: Now you’ll plant a tree when booking our Phuket villas

In 2016, the Thai government banned tourism in certain parts of Phuket due to the negative impact of commerce and human enterprise on the island’s thriving coral reef and marine life. In 2018, Boracay will be closed for 6 months. The impact of tourism on the environment is pretty obvious. Air travel contributes a major part to our carbon footprint. Peak hours see almost 10,000 planes in the sky, and the figure is expected to double by 2035. It is high time we took a step back and thought about our responsibility to the environment.

Photo Credit: Greenpeace on Facebook

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Villa-Finder’s “Book A Villa = Plant a Tree” initiative

In March 2018, we joined hands with Reforest’Action – an initiative that aims to offset CO2 emissions by planting trees to prevent deforestation. Whenever you book a villa in Phuket (or any of our destinations), we will plant one tree in Sumatra, Indonesia. 1,888 thriving trees have been planted thanks to you! You can track our progress here.

How can you help?

There are plenty of things you can do to contribute towards this global initiative to save the planet. Start with the smallest things and take a decision to ‘live a little greener’. The island of Phuket offers many eco-hotels and eco-villas that have been constructed with locally sourced materials including reclaimed timber wood, water hyacinth or rattan, bamboo, rubber etc. Traditional design and architecture help reduce the carbon footprint of these places, in turn helping you to live in more sustainable ways. That’s not all – If you want to learn more about sustainable travel, look forward to our upcoming Sustainable Travel Guide!

It is the small things that make a bigger impact. We seek your support and understanding to spearhead this venture into becoming a force to be reckoned with.

What is Reforest’Action all about?

In our digital age, the importance of planting trees to save the planet is an idea that is lost on paper. Keeping this in mind, Stephane Hallaire – founder of Reforest’Action – established a digital this ‘crowdplanting’ platform in 2010, wherein the Reforest’Action team plants a physical tree on the ground for every tree planted digitally by you! They even allow you to keep a check on your trees by reading the weekly news published on the website. The initiative finds roots not just in Indonesia but also in countries like France, Spain, Portugal, Senegal, USA, Morocco, Haiti, and Peru. To this day the initiative has planted over 2 million trees around the world – an achievement no less!

The idea behind it is supported by careful instruction and education about the kind of trees supported by different climates. In Indonesia you have 5 varieties of mangrove trees while Haiti is being forested with cacao trees. At Villa Finder, we are proud to be part of this initiative and we make sure to keep a check on the growth of each of our trees.