At Vikasa, wellness is about more than what happens on the yoga mat. It extends into the everyday choices that support our bodies, our community and the environment around us.
Water is one of the simplest examples. It is essential to wellbeing, yet the way drinking water is traditionally supplied can come with an environmental cost, from single-use plastic bottles to packaging and transportation.
Across Vikasa Koh Samui and Vikasa Phuket, we are taking a more considered approach through our partnership with MINAIRAL, a Thailand-based water technology company creating drinking water directly from the humidity in the air.
It is a simple idea powered by innovative technology: produce fresh mineral water where it is needed while reducing reliance on bottled water and the infrastructure required to transport it.
Turning Air into Drinking Water
Thailand’s tropical climate is naturally rich in humidity. MINAIRAL’s technology captures that moisture from the surrounding air and transforms it into drinking water.
The water passes through a multi-stage purification process that includes reverse osmosis filtration before being naturally remineralized with minerals including calcium, magnesium and potassium. The result is alkaline mineral water with a pH of approximately 8.5, generated directly on-site.
For Vikasa, the technology offers something particularly meaningful. Rather than continually bringing packaged drinking water onto our properties, we can generate a fresh supply locally.
It is an example of how thoughtful technology can help us reconsider even the most familiar parts of daily life.
Reducing Our Reliance on Single-Use Plastic
Reducing single-use plastic is an important part of Vikasa’s wider approach to more mindful operations.
Plastic water bottles can have an impact long before and after the moment they are used. Bottles need to be manufactured, packaged and transported, and after use they enter waste and recycling systems that are not always able to recover every material.
By generating drinking water on-site with MINAIRAL, we can significantly reduce our reliance on single-use plastic bottles for drinking water.
For island communities and coastal environments such as Koh Samui and Phuket, reducing unnecessary plastic waste is particularly relevant. These are places shaped by the ocean, and protecting the natural environment that surrounds us is part of our responsibility as a hospitality and wellness community.
A More Local Approach to Hydration
Sustainability is not only about what we remove. It is also about reconsidering how the things we use every day reach us.
Conventionally supplied bottled water requires ongoing transportation from its source to the places where it is consumed. Producing water directly on-site offers a different model.
MINAIRAL’s air-to-water technology allows us to reduce our dependence on packaged water deliveries and the road transportation associated with them. It also gives us a more local approach to something our guests, team members and community need every day.
The concept aligns naturally with a principle we return to throughout Vikasa: whenever possible, work with what is already around us.
In this case, that resource is in the air itself.
Technology with Intention
Innovation has an important role to play in sustainability, but for Vikasa, technology is most meaningful when it serves a clear purpose.
Our partnership with MINAIRAL is not simply about installing a new water system. It reflects a broader question we continually ask across our operations: is there a more thoughtful way to do this?
Sometimes the answer comes from returning to traditional practices and local craftsmanship, as with our partnership with T.A.I Studio. In other cases, it comes from using new technology to rethink an established system.
Both approaches begin with the same intention. We want the choices behind the Vikasa experience to reflect greater awareness of the people, resources and environments connected to them.
A Shared Commitment to More Sustainable Wellness
We chose to work with MINAIRAL because our values meet at the intersection of wellness and environmental responsibility.
For us, hydration is an essential part of supporting the wellbeing of our community. At the same time, the way we provide that water should reflect our commitment to reducing unnecessary waste and protecting the environments we are fortunate to call home.
Through our partnership with MINAIRAL, we can provide clean, mineral-rich drinking water while reducing our reliance on single-use plastic bottles and transported packaged water across our Koh Samui and Phuket locations.
It is one operational change within a much bigger journey, but meaningful change is often built from choices like these.
At Vikasa, we believe wellness and sustainability belong together. Caring for ourselves should not be separate from caring for the world around us.
Explore Vikasa’s approach to mindful and sustainable living →