Rosewood Phuket Opens on Emerald Bay With the First Asaya

Rosewood Phuket opened on 20 November 2017 on Emerald Bay, a cove on the south-west coast of the island, a short distance from Patong and hidden from it by a headland. It was the first Rosewood in Southeast Asia, and the resort where the group introduced Asaya, the wellness concept it has since taken to its hotels around the world.

The resort has 71 pavilions and villas, all with private pools, on 43 acres of hillside above 600 metres of beach. The smallest, the Ocean View Pool Pavilions, measure 130 square metres, and the largest, the Ocean House, close to 800. The buildings are low, with planted roofs, and were laid out around banyan trees some 150 years old that were kept on the site.

Sustainability was part of the design from the start. Rainwater is collected and treated to supply the whole resort, the solar installation was the largest of any hotel in Phuket at the time of opening, and a project to restore the coral of the bay was begun.

The restaurants reflect the island. Ta Khai, built from reclaimed timber in the style of a fishing village and set beside a lotus pond, serves southern Thai home cooking by a couple from the nearby province of Trang, and has become one of the most admired Thai restaurants in a resort. There is also an Italian restaurant and a beach grill.

Asaya occupies its own building, with suites for treatments and therapies and a programme that brings together fitness, nutrition, emotional balance and skin care. Later versions opened at Rosewood Hong Kong and at Rosewood Miyakojima.

Sonia Cheng, the chief executive of the group, said at the opening that the resort gave the group’s idea of a sense of place a rich setting in which to work.

Phuket’s best resorts had long been on the quieter west-coast bays to the north, where Amanpuri opened in 1988. Rosewood showed that the south of the island could offer seclusion too. It was followed in the region by Rosewood Luang Prabang, Rosewood Phnom Penh and Rosewood Bangkok.