Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor Reopens After Six Months of Renovation

Raffles Grand Hotel d’Angkor, in Siem Reap, reopened on 1 October 2019 after six months of renovation. The work covered 112 of the hotel’s 119 rooms and suites, and the public rooms.

The hotel is one of the oldest in Cambodia. It was designed in 1929 by the architect Ernest Hébrard and opened in 1931-32 with 63 rooms, all with private bathrooms, in a Khmer-influenced Art Deco style with black-and-white marble floors. Fairmont Raffles Hotels International took it over in 1997, together with Le Royal in Phnom Penh. The new work leaves the structure alone. The façade is repainted alabaster white, replacing the earlier cream-beige.

In the rooms, the changes are practical: spotlights, power ports and USB charging, upgraded French windows, a writing desk and a vintage rotary telephone, built-in wardrobes in place of cabinets, and new Italian tile and separate rain showers in the bathrooms. David Grace Designs refurbished the Café d’Angkor and the conservatory, which is known for afternoon tea and its baby grand piano. The former Apsara Terrace has become the Raffles Marquee, a canvas-roofed venue for events and banquets, edged with laterite boundary stones in the Angkorian manner. The signature restaurant, 1932, was due to follow in November 2019.

The hotel now has two neighbours with very different characters: Park Hyatt Siem Reap, in the former Hotel de la Paix, and Bill Bensley’s villas at Shinta Mani Siem Reap. We compare the three in Siem Reap’s grand hotels.