Welcome Message From the President

Dear Skalleagues,

As your new club president, I wish to thank Blandine Cressard for all her dedication and hard work over the past term. As you know Blandine has moved to Vanuatu and I’ve been told that she is already the VP of the local club there. Good luck Blandine and we look forward to see you again soon.

We have been keeping what has been our Club’s successful formula based on simply gathering friend for a monthly dinner. These dinners have a typical relaxed island feel to them and are centered on building friendship within our industry. I would like to thank our monthly host for putting all the efforts and offering the very best in hospitality.

We currently stand at 54 international members, 12 associates and 4 Young Skal. The objective of the committee for 2012-2013 is to attract more members, but more importantly to make the current members active in the club by joining the different events throughout the year, bring ideas & suggestions on how to improve the club for the benefit of our members and of course continue doing business among friends.

We are proud to be part of the largest association of tourism professionals uniting all branches of the travel and tourism industry. Our industry employs millions of people around the world and we believe that we can contribute to peace and harmony. By working together, we can influence strategies in tourism & making sure that ethics and sustainability are well respected, especially during this uncertain economic & social environment.

In our days, sustainable tourism never been so important and specifically for our beautiful island of Phuket. We have all seen the changes in the past years with the degradation of the environment, coastal erosion, loss of cultural heritage etc…

I encourage you to read and share with your colleagues the Skal Code of Ethics and Guidelines for Sustainable Tourism. The publication can be found on the Skal website. These are not only nice words but action that we should try to live by on a daily basis.

Raising awareness with the local community and education will be one of our priorities and I encourage any members to step forward and initiate projects that would promote sustainable tourism in Phuket but also the Andaman region.

Please do contact me at: president@skalphuket.org or at any event. Thank you

Finally, I would like to thank you for the trust you have placed in me as your president and be assured I will make every effort to justify that trust.

To all members and new ones, I am looking forward to seeing you and welcoming you to our next event.

With my best Skål regards,

Claude Sauter, President
Skal International Phuket & South Thailand