Resort capital seeks sustainable solutions

Vietnam's marine strategy has determined that by 2020, the marine and coastal economy will strive to contribute about 53-55% of the country's GDP, of which beach tourism and island economy will contribute about 14-15% of GDP. However, the current issue raised is that the marine environment is being seriously polluted right from the construction and operation process of tourism projects.

In Binh Thuan province, although transport infrastructure and many projects in recent years have been heavily invested to help develop tourism, before being exploited as expected, pollution has become alarming. The reason is that tourism business units do not have waste treatment systems yet. In addition, the volume of domestic waste is increasing rapidly, mostly untreated, or treated by landfill methods, direct discharge has greatly affected the natural environment and water quality.

Besides surface pollution, the chemical treatment process during the construction of tourist areas also contributes to harming groundwater and seawater in neighboring areas. Vietnam is a tropical country, a favorable condition for termites to develop. Therefore, the procedure for preventing termites from attacking construction works, especially in coastal areas, is always a top priority for investors.

Currently, the most common method to prevent termites is spraying chemicals onto the building foundation before construction. However, this approach is costly and ineffective, because after 2-3 years, more must be pumped due to the old chemicals losing their effect. Not only is it expensive, but the risk of polluting groundwater and nearby sea areas is also quite high due to having to use a large amount of chemicals sprayed to permeate into the ground to control termites. According to the World Bank, Vietnam is losing at least 69 million USD/year in tourism revenue due to pollution.

To contribute to completely resolving the above issues, besides raising public awareness, the authorities of Binh Thuan province have encouraged tourism establishments to focus on using clean energy and having appropriate waste disposal systems, limiting the use of chemicals during the construction of coastal tourism projects.

At the end of September, the Department of Natural Resources and Environment of Binh Thuan province organized the “Conference on dissemination of laws on environmental protection and water resources for the tourism industry” in Phan Thiet, attracting nearly 80 guests who are representatives of tourist areas and resorts operating in the province. Besides disseminating new documents on environmental protection regulations in tourism business, the representative of the Department also introduced the Exterra (USA) termite control and interception system to help limit the use of chemicals in construction.

Mr. Nguyen Bao Son, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Fumigation Company, presenting about the Exterra product

According to Mr. Nguyen Bao Son, Deputy General Director of Vietnam Fumigation Company (VFC), the unit coordinating with the Department of Natural Resources & Environment of Binh Thuan province to organize this workshop, the Exterra system not only controls termites effectively but also meets eco-friendly requirements.

Exterra has been applied by several famous tourism projects in Vietnam such as Pandanus, The Clift (Phan Thiet), Vinpearl Luxury Resort (Nha Trang and Da Nang) or Da Nang golf club, Furama (Da Nang), Laguna Lang Co (Hue)... The advantage of this system is permanent prevention and control for the building. According to the representative of VFC with the Pestman brand, the exclusive distributor of Exterra, this system only needs to be installed once during construction and the annual maintenance cost is very modest while still preventing termites effectively. In the world, the Exterra system has been installed at Warner Bros Movie World, Dream World (USA), Darling Harbour (Australia) or Disneyland (Hong Kong) projects.