Travel and Hotel information of Asia
Friday, August 11, 2006
Anantara Golden Triangle Chaing Rai To Host Elephant Polo 2006
September 4 - 10, 2006
Chiang Saen Secondary School
Golden Triangle,Chiang Rai, Thailand
Thailand's highly popular King's Cup Elephant Polo Tournament heads for the hills in 2006. Event organiser Anantara Resorts announcced that the 2006 tournament would take place from 4-10 September in the northern-most region of the country popularly known as the Golden Triangle
This annual event, ranked as the 6th largest event on theThai tourism calendar has, for the past five years, taken place in the royal saeside town of Hua Hin, situated 220km south of the Thai capital Bangkok. The tournament was introducted to Thailand in 2001 by Anantara Vice-President, Chistopher Stafford and is a charitable event that raises money for the country's National Elephant Institute in Lampang , northern Thailand.In just five years the King's Cup elephant Polo Tournament has gine from a small 2-day event with 6 teams into a week-long extravaganza, which in 2005 featured 16 teams from 3 continents encompassing 55 players from 15 countries. The event now attracts corporate sponrs, which include such global brands as American Express, Birtish Airways, Chivas Regal, Mercedes Benz and PricewaterhouseCoopers. In addition to the world's top horse polo players, the 2005 tournament saw the return oh Bernie fraser, New Zealand' s former world-ranking , All Blacks rugby players plus newcomers , Nick Farr Jones and Peter fitzsimmons from Australia's wallabies team.
"The growing interest each year is enormous,"Staford commented. "When we started it was more of a weeked knock-round than a tournament. Last years we had a waiting list of teams wanting to take part!"
Anantara Resort and Spa: 1-800-525-4800; http://www.anantara.com. Thai tourism authority: 1-800-842-45263; http://www.tourismthailand.org.
Thai Elephant Conservation Centre: http://www.changthai.com.
Thai Elephant Conservation Centre: http://www.changthai.com.
# posted by Aom-ing : 9:45 AM
