Bill Bensley is adamant: ‘Luxury as we knew it is stone-cold dead!’ He’s not the first person in the hospitality industry to make that remark, or something like it. But as the man who has done more than anyone else to redefine the luxury hotel resort in Southeast Asia, it sounds like Elon Musk saying there’s not much of a future for electric cars. From Phuket to Da Nang, Indonesia to Cambodia, in partnership with Rosewood or the InterContinental, JW Marriott or the Four Seasons, the name Bill Bensley is a guarantee that your accommodation is going to have more than a touch of verve, glamour and irreverence. He’s taken the familiar regional, pared-down aesthetic (thatched roofs, rooms on stilts, open-air lobbies, daybeds) and added mosaics, columns, mirrors and art deco graphics.
