Tesco Lotus Thalang opens in Phuket

PHUKET: Phuket’s second Tesco Lotus shopping mall is now open for business in Thalang, with a grand opening ceremony featuring scholarship presentations to needy local students set for tomorrow.

The new mall, located on Thepkrasattri Road southbound near Thalang Hospital, covers more than 17,000 square meters and has 99 shops. The department store itself employs 274 staff, all from Phuket, and offers a total of 35,000 product lines in all departments.

There are 28 outlets in the food court, which has seating for 366 guests. The parking lot has spaces for over 700 cars and 400 motorbikes.

The mall opened today to help staff prepare for the opening ceremony starting at 8:30am tomorrow. Among the dignitaries scheduled to address the audience are Phuket Governor Tri Augkaradacha and Tesco-Lotus Thailand chairman Sunthorn Arunanondchai.

At the opening ceremony, 100 scholarships worth a total of 100,000 baht will be donated to needy students at schools administered by the Thepkrasattri Tambon Administration Organization.

Tesco Lotus Thalang is the newest of over 800 Tesco Lotus stores in the kingdom, servicing a total of more than 35 million customers each month.

Among the retail conglomerate’s environmental protection programs are its “Green Bag, Green Points” project, which rewards customers with “Green Clubcard Points” for each plastic bag saved.

Nationwide, the project saved the use of 4.4 million plastic bags between January 2010 and August 2011, according to management.

Tesco Lotus awards 20 Green Clubcard Points per bag saved in every Tesco Lotus store in Phuket, twice the amount in other provinces. The store has also supported the “Phuket Plastic Bag Free” project by allocating 1.2 million baht to be used to distribute cloth bags to Phuket shoppers free of charge.

The company has also provided 890,000 baht in funding for Phuket’s Pho Maled Phan Phalang-ngan (“Energy Seed”) project to educate school children on alternative energy and increase environmental awareness.

“We will continue working with Phuket to preserve its natural beauty, save wildlife and conserve the environment in future projects,” a company spokesperson said.

— Stephen Fein