Boracay resort features lush property, turtle sightings manned by green warriors
MANILA, Philippines — Most Boracay properties are dotted with greens, but only a few can truly say that they are surrounded with lush greenery.
Movenpick Boracay is among these handful resorts that can say that loves nature, with its 3.5-hectare property in Boracay’s northernmost tip in Punta Bunga Cove covered with towering trees and plants.
The four-star Accor property features a beachfront dotted with trees that provide shade to those who love lounging by the beach.
Its connected pools standout with its blue waters contrasting against a backdrop of flowering plants and trees.
Just three days into the new year last January 3, the resort saw a new batch of baby turtles being released to the sea at its beachfront. In partnership with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources CENRO Boracay, 44 baby turtles swam their way to the open sea, a fresh new batch to the past hatchling or turtles that considered the beachfront of Movenpick Boracay as their home.
Sustainability is one of the key features of the resort, and its current general manager Franck Merot is a green warrior.
Merot joined Movenpick in 2019, after a three-year stint with the InterContinental Hotel Group as exeuctive assistant manager at two of its hotel properties in Manila. He came in as an executive assistant manager of Movenpick Boracay in 2019 until he finally took rein of the property in 2021.
“I’m a strong believer that we are part of nature and that we have to maintain nature,” Merot said to Philstar.com in an exclusive interview last year.
Merot led in planting what he calls the “next generation” trees in 2020 at the height of the pandemic. It gave him and the resort a chance to plan ahead for the property given the series of lockdowns that were implemented nationwide during the pandemic. He is proud because some of the trees that they planted in 2020 are now at five to six meters tall in just four years.
“We planted the next generation already. My focus when the pandemic was there was to plant the next generation of trees so that we can get shade from younger trees,” the general manager said.
The resort is a certified member of Green Globe, a body that hands out a certification that asseses the sustainability performance of travel and tourism businesses and their suppy chain partners. Its certification considers 44 core criteria supported by over 380 compliance indicators audited and verified by auditors every two years.
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