Outrigger Resorts and Hotels is deepening the conservation work at its four beachfront properties in southern Thailand, in Koh Samui, Khao Lak, Phi Phi Island and Phuket, giving travellers looking for sustainable resorts in Thailand practical ways to put something back into the coastlines they visit, from mangrove planting and turtle conservation to seagrass restoration and beach cleanups.
The push responds to a clear shift in demand. Booking.com research published in 2025 found that 69 per cent of travellers want to leave the places they visit better than when they arrived. For UK business travellers extending a trip in South East Asia into leisure time, or firms planning incentive stays with a community element, that intention is now easier to act on. The programmes sit under Outrigger Zone, the group’s conservation initiative guiding work on ocean health and coastal communities across its global portfolio, with details published on the Outrigger sustainability pages.
Sustainable resorts in Thailand, from farm waste to seagrass
At Outrigger Koh Samui Beach Resort, the work starts well inland. The property partners with Suk Por Tao Farm, founded by Kanit Somwong, which redirects food waste to feed hundreds of ducks, chickens, pigs, goats and cows and currently manages more than 10 tons of food waste every day. On 15 September 2026, more than 30 resort staff will prepare food waste for farm animals and turn fruit waste into natural liquid fertiliser at the BannYa Suanpu Learning Center.
Closer to the shore, the resort backs the Baan Tai Crab Bank, a community scheme that nurtures crabs and released a reported three million juveniles into local waters last year. It also supports seagrass restoration, with more than 24,000 seedlings planted so far, helping a habitat that shelters young fish and crabs, protects coastlines and stores carbon.
Up the Andaman coast at Outrigger Khao Lak Beach Resort on Bangsak Beach, guests can join the restoration of mangrove forests, with more than 3,000 trees planted each year, and learn about the leatherback, green, hawksbill and olive ridley turtles found in the region through release and pond-cleaning programmes timed around conservation needs. On 21 September 2026, resort teams will clean the nursery ponds at the Phang-Nga Sea Turtle Conservation Center, which is run by the Royal Thai Navy.
Culture and cleanups on Phi Phi and Surin Beach
The newly opened Outrigger Phi Phi Island Resort draws on the traditions of the Urak Lawoi, the seafaring people of the Andaman, through handcrafted bead bracelets and locally informed design. On 18 September 2026, 50 resort staff, students from Laem Tong School and neighbouring hotel teams will clean Loh Lana Bay for World Cleanup Day, followed by a two-hour workshop upcycling the collected waste. The resort also runs edible gardens, composts organic waste for its kitchens, recycles wastewater for irrigation, has eliminated single-use plastics and buys seafood landed on its beach by the local Sea Gypsy community.
In Phuket, Outrigger Surin Beach Resort invites guests on early-morning shoreline cleanups, and from 18 September 2026 its staff will run From Waste to Warmth, a month-long campaign in which recyclables collected locally are sold to SAO Cherngtalay and the proceeds exchanged for eggs to support bedridden patients in the Bangtao community.
Thailand is working hard to make sustainability central to its luxury offer, a strategy explored in Thailand’s 2026 repositioning of luxury travel. For companies under pressure to show that incentive trips and retreats deliver more than beach time, resort-led conservation gives a stay measurable community value. For individuals bolting leisure days onto meetings in Bangkok or Singapore, the experiences are low-commitment and bookable on site; our guide to the best times to visit Thailand for business and leisure helps with timing around the monsoon calendar.
