Date: 22 – 28 Mar, 2010
Venue: Anantara Resort Golden Triangle, Chiang Rai Province, Thailand

Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas has announced the 2010 dates for the King’s Cup Elephant Polo Tournament. The highly popular event will take place from March 22 to March 28 Chiang Rai Province, the northernmost region of Thailand.

An opening parade and blessing ceremony will be held in Chiang Saen town on the first day of event to demonstrate Thailand’s northern culture with traditional-style dancers, hill-tribe villagers in local costume, elephant spirit men (Khru Ba Yai), and colourfully decorated pachyderms. The parade will mark the start of the weeklong competition held on the banks of the Ruak River, which divides Thailand from Burma. Last year, the event featured 12 teams from four continents, encompassing 40 players from at least 15 countries.

Through its own Elephant Camp located within the grounds of the Anantara Resort Golden Triangle, the property’s focus on the future of Thailand’s pachyderm population forms an integral part of the resort’s operations 0n an ongoing basis. Resident Elephant Camp Director, John Roberts, worked closely with the Thai government’s Elephant Conservation Centre in Lampang to develop Anantara’s camp as an elephant sanctuary and continues to work with them on several conservation projects.

To date the tournament has raised over US$250,000 for the National Elephant Institute, which provides medical care, sustenance, employment, and mahout training to Thailand’s elephant population. In recent years, the funds were used to run the ambulance and provide mobile veterinary centrifuge for their mobile elephant clinic and housing at the Centre’s elephant hospital allowing it to provide free accommodation as well as medical treatment to sick elephants in Thailand. Proceeds from the 2009 project have been used to ‘rescue rent’ five street elephants to be trained in occupational therapy as part of a joint Thai Elephant Conservation Centre, Chiang Mai University project investigating the benefits of using elephants to treat Autism.

It is estimated that Thailand has around 3,600 domesticated elephants and 1,500 wild elephants. The tournament will take place in the grounds of Anantara Resort Golden Triangle. Spectator entrance is free.

Source: Anantara Hotels, Resorts & Spas