THE MAGIC OF BILL BENSLEY: STORYTELLING AND SUSTAINABLE LUXURY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
When you arrive at Shinta Mani Wild, a luxury camp deep in Cambodia’s Cardamom rainforest, the journey sets the tone: guests soar in on a 400-meter zipline over rivers and trees, landing at a bar perched above the rapids. It’s a dramatic entrance that immediately immerses you in a world where adventure and high design meet. This is the kind of experiential travel Bill Bensley specialises in – luxury hotels in Southeast Asia that are anything but ordinary. Each property that the Bangkok-based designer creates has a story to tell, woven through architecture, interiors, landscapes, and even staff uniforms. From jungle camps and riverside retreats to palatial resorts, Bensley’s hotels redefine luxury through narrative and local soul, inviting guests to step inside a living story.
Bensley, often called a modern-day Renaissance man of hotel design, has masterminded over 200 properties across 30+ countries. Yet it’s in Southeast Asia where his creative visions truly shine, drawing on the region’s rich cultures, crafts, and landscapes. “Narrative is everything to me, as I have always loved storytelling, and no project is complete without a real design DNA,” Bensley says. Much like a film director, he approaches each hotel as a new script – doing deep historical research, dreaming up characters and scenarios, and building entire environments around them. The result? Immersive experiential travel destinations where storytelling in hospitality is elevated to an art form, and where sustainability and community are woven seamlessly into the fantasy.
Here, we explore four standout Bensley-designed hotels across Southeast Asia – from a Cambodian jungle safari camp to a Bali-tented retreat, a Bangkok heritage palace, and a whimsical Vietnamese resort. Each exemplifies how Bensley uses narrative architecture, local craftsmanship, and cultural inspiration to create immersive luxury hotels that surprise and delight. Along the way, we’ll see how he blends sustainability, whimsy, and high design – proving that eco-consciousness and eccentricity can go hand-in-hand – and hear from Bensley himself about the philosophy behind these extraordinary places.
THE MAGIC OF BILL BENSLEY: STORYTELLING AND SUSTAINABLE LUXURY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
All Aboard the Intercontinental Khao Yai Express
Nestled in the heart of Thailand’s Khao Yai, the Intercontinental Khao Yai Resort is an awe-inspiring destination where luxury meets nature, designed by the visionary Bill Bensley. Known for his flair for storytelling through design, Bensley once again redefines opulence with this remarkable property, blending the romance of train travel with the lush serenity of Khao Yai National Park.
The resort’s architecture and interior design pay homage to the golden age of train travel while seamlessly integrating with the natural landscape. True to Bensley’s signature style, the property tells a story through every detail, from upcycled train carriages transformed into luxurious suites to interiors inspired by the rugged elegance of railway journeys. The result is a perfect harmony of nostalgia and nature, where reclaimed materials and sustainable practices coexist with decadent comfort.
Guests can choose from a range of accommodations, including private villas and rooms within converted carriages. Each space is thoughtfully crafted, offering sweeping views of the surrounding mountains, forests, and lakes, all while maintaining a sense of refined luxury. The clever use of upcycled elements not only enhances the visual appeal but also reinforces the resort’s commitment to sustainable travel.
THE MAGIC OF BILL BENSLEY: STORYTELLING AND SUSTAINABLE LUXURY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Wild Luxury in Cambodia: Shinta Mani Wild
Shinta Mani Wild in Cambodia is a luxury tented camp set deep in a 400-acre rainforest sanctuary, with 15 lavish tents perched over the rushing Tmor Rung River and waterfalls. Shinta Mani Wild – a Bensley Collection resort that opened in late 2018 – is perhaps the ultimate example of Bensley’s narrative approach. Tucked between three national parks in southern Cambodia, this private nature sanctuary was born from a mission to save a swath of endangered rainforests from logging and poaching. Bensley purchased the 400-acre plot of land with a conservationist friend, then set out to prove that high-end tourism could fund its protection. He calls the resort “a utopia of sustainability,” where conservation and hospitality work together. In partnership with Wildlife Alliance, Shinta Mani Wild uses guest revenue to support daily anti-poaching patrols, and many of the camp’s staff are former poachers re-trained as naturalists and rangers. It’s luxury experiential travel with a purpose: every stay directly contributes to protecting the surrounding wilderness.
The design narrative was inspired by a glamorous moment in Cambodian history. In 1967, Jackie Kennedy famously travelled with King Norodom Sihanouk on a safari-style tour of Cambodia’s jungles. Bensley asked himself: What if the King had invited Jackie on a jungle glamping trip? What would that have been like? Shinta Mani Wild is his answer. The camp’s 15 custom tents are decorated as though they belong to intrepid explorers on a royal expedition in the 1960s. Each tent is utterly unique – one might be filled with wildlife drawings and butterfly specimens, another with vintage travel trunks and Khmer antiquities – yet all exude a nostalgic grandeur, perched on stilts over a river canyon. “The 15 guest tents are inspired by a luxury safari that Jackie Kennedy took through the jungles of Cambodia with King Sihanouk in 1967,” notes one review. Indeed, Bensley’s design recreates the feeling of a mid-century expedition outfitted with Phnom Penh’s finest furnishings. The whimsy is palpable: outdoor bathtubs overlooking waterfalls, a copper bathtub fashioned from a repurposed boat, and a Hidden Bar accessed by a rope bridge for evening cocktails under the stars.
Crucially, this high style comes with high sustainability standards. The entire camp was built with minimal impact on the forest – no heavy machinery and no trees felled – and is completely solar-powered. Bensley’s team even designed the tents and facilities to “touch the ground lightly,” elevating structures on stilts and bridges so the natural environment could thrive beneath. Guests are encouraged to engage with the conservation efforts: joining rangers on anti-poaching patrols, checking camera traps for new wildlife sightings, or simply learning about the ecosystem. As Bensley puts it, “high yield, low impact tourism” can be a viable alternative to destructive logging or mining in Cambodia’s future. By blending conservation with five-star hospitality, Shinta Mani Wild has redefined luxury in Cambodia – proving that a story-rich wilderness experience can deliver extravagance (think $2,000-a-night tented villas) while actively preserving the environment and supporting local communities.
It’s also outrageously fun. Upon arrival, heart pounding from that jungle zipline ride, you’re handed a champagne “welcome drink” as if you just stepped off a helicopter. Days are spent foraging with the chef for wild edible plants, cruising down estuary rivers on Bensley-designed safari boats (complete with a cocktail bar on board), or taking a plunge in natural waterfall pools. At night, you might dine on gourmet Khmer cuisine in a tented lodge lit by twinkling lanterns, and serenaded by jungle sounds. Every moment feels like part of some fantastical nature storybook – one written by a designer who believes luxury should engage the imagination and leave a positive footprint. “I love that every time I go [to Shinta Mani Wild] we discover a different wildlife species we didn’t know was living there,” Bensley says, recounting how wildlife has begun to rebound now that the area is protected. In a region rapidly being deforested, Shinta Mani Wild stands out as an oasis where whimsical design meets real-world impact – truly “wild luxury” in every sense.
Capella Ubud
THE MAGIC OF BILL BENSLEY: STORYTELLING AND SUSTAINABLE LUXURY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
A Jungle Fantasy in Bali: Capella Ubud
Capella Ubud in Bali is an ultra-luxe tented camp hidden in a lush rainforest. Each of its 22 tented suites has its own theme and story – here, a tent evokes the spirit of early Dutch explorers, complete with antiques and whimsical details amid the jungle canopy. On the Indonesian island of Bali, Bill Bensley’s Capella Ubud resort invites guests to time-travel back to the 19th century – with a playful twist. This intimate retreat consists of 22 lavish tented lodges hidden among Ubud’s dense rainforests and rice terraces, evoking the tale of shipwrecked Dutch settlers who landed on Bali’s shores in the 1800s. Rather than building a standard hotel tower or villa complex, Bensley convinced the owners to embrace a low-impact “camp” concept: the project was originally slated to be a 120-room hotel, but was dramatically scaled down to preserve the site’s sacred valley and countless trees. The result is a fantasy camp that feels lost in time. “We imagined that from the wreckage [of a ship], the survivors salvaged enough to put together a camp which impressed even the local rajah!” Bensley says, describing the narrative that guided the design. In other words, Capella Ubud sets the stage as a colonial expedition base assembled from bygone treasures and local materials – albeit one with air conditioning, saltwater pools, and a personal butler for each tent.
Staying here is like inhabiting a period adventure novel. Each tent has its own persona and role in the camp’s story – the Cartographer’s tent, the Puppeteer’s tent, the Captain’s tent, and so on – complete with curated antiques and decor befitting that character. Old maps and navigation tools adorn the walls of the Cartographer’s tent; Indonesian shadow puppets and stages fill the Puppeteer’s quarters. This attention to thematic detail creates an atmosphere of immersive storytelling: as a guest, you feel like a character in the tale yourself. “At BENSLEY I teach my designers that a great hotel stems from great DNA. What we do is very much like movie-making: a narrative that engages and surprises the audience, that they can relate to and even become a part of,” Bensley has explained of his design philosophy. At Capella Ubud, that philosophy comes alive brilliantly – the narrative literally surrounds you in the form of architecture and artefacts. And yet, for all the historical fantasy, the resort never lets you forget you’re in Bali’s jungle: large decks open to the lush foliage, and you might spot a palm tree growing right through the deck of your tent, left standing in Bensley’s commitment to “Minimal Intervention” design (not a single tree was cut down during construction).
Local craftsmanship and cultural inspiration anchor Capella Ubud firmly in its Balinese setting, even as it indulges in colonial-era whimsy. The resort’s teak wood floors were all handmade by artisans in Java – built to last “for decades and decades,” as Bensley puts it. Grand hand-carved Balinese doors, commissioned specially for the project, mark entrances with intricate patterns; these doors took local craftsmen a full year to carve. Throughout the property, one finds Indonesian textiles, Javanese batik prints, and locally crafted furniture, giving the sense that the “shipwrecked settlers” worked hand-in-hand with Balinese villagers to rebuild their camp. Bensley even incorporated a real historical figure into the narrative: Mads Lange, a Danish trader who became a Bali legend in the 1800s, inspiring one of the characters in the camp’s story. By rooting the fanciful storyline in real regional history and art, Capella Ubud manages to be fantastical yet authentic – a celebration of Balinese heritage as much as a flight of imagination.
Sustainability is another strong theme. The decision to avoid cutting trees meant the tents had to be positioned with extreme care – Bensley’s team built full-scale bamboo mock-ups on-site to find each tent’s perfect spot among existing trees. The camp’s design delicately treads lightly on the land, with elevated pathways, rainwater capture, and no permanent foundations that would scar the terrain. And while luxury here is fully present (each tent has its own saltwater plunge pool and bespoke hand-hammered copper bathtub), it’s luxury that engages with nature rather than walling it off. In the morning, you might wake to a chorus of tropical birds echoing through the jungle ravine – an experience Bensley deliberately preserved: “Often you’ll find a palm tree popping up through a terrace… to keep the feeling of being tucked into a jungle sanctuary,” he notes of the design. Guests can join guided hikes to nearby waterfalls, learn about Balinese medicinal plants from local guides, or simply sit on their tent’s veranda and watch monkeys swing through the canopy. By day’s end, as oil lamps flicker around the camp and the jungle hum intensifies, you truly feel transported – not just to another place, but another era.
Capella Ubud has earned a reputation as one of the world’s most extraordinary resorts, precisely because it marries conservation with creativity. Travel publications have praised how it proves there “need not be any compromise in the marriage of design and conservation”. In Bensley’s hands, protecting a sacred patch of Balinese rainforest became an opportunity to spin a magnificent tale of adventure – and to let guests live out that tale in five-star style. It’s experiential luxury at its best: imaginative, site-specific, and a little wild at heart.
The Siam
THE MAGIC OF BILL BENSLEY: STORYTELLING AND SUSTAINABLE LUXURY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
A Palace of Heritage in Bangkok: The Siam
At The Siam in Bangkok, the Deco Bar & Bistro showcases the hotel’s eclectic style – note the cluster of vintage gramophones and brass instruments suspended from the ceiling. The Siam feels part hotel, part museum, filled with antiques and imaginative design details that transport guests to Bangkok’s past. In the heart of Bangkok, far from any jungle, Bill Bensley applied his storytelling magic to create The Siam – an urban luxury retreat that feels like stepping into Thailand’s bygone golden age. Opened in 2012 and set on 3 acres of prime Chao Phraya River frontage, The Siam is a 39-suite boutique hotel that Bensley has described as “a unique animal: part hotel, part museum, part resort.” From the moment you enter its art-filled lobby, you sense this place is special. Sunlight filters through a lofty atrium onto black-and-white marble floors, casting reflections in a long ornamental pool flanked by tropical greenery. Everywhere your eye wanders, something is intriguing: a gallery of historic Thai photographs here, a century-old silk fan or antique travel trunk there. The hotel was a personal passion project of its owner, Krissada Sukosol, a Thai musician-actor whose family has a legendary antique collection. Krissada teamed up with Bensley to fulfil a vision: a hotel that celebrates Bangkok’s heritage during the era of King Rama V (turn of the 20th century) while offering an intimate, residential feel.
To bring that vision to life, Bensley essentially designed a living museum. He and Krissada scoured Thailand for authentic architectural relics to incorporate. In one remarkable feat, they salvaged three sprawling teakwood houses dating back to the 1800s – former residences of a well-known Thai socialite, Connie Mangksau, who once hosted guests like Jackie Kennedy and Roger Moore in those very buildings. Bensley had the dismantled teak houses transported downriver and reassembled on The Siam’s property, where they were lovingly restored and now serve as the hotel’s signature Thai restaurant and villa suites. This bold move anchors The Siam in a tangible piece of Thai history. Wandering through the restaurant’s open-air verandas, you can easily imagine the conversations and cocktail parties those walls have seen as if the ghosts of 1920s Bangkok are still in residence. Meanwhile, Bensley filled the interiors with over 25,000 antiques and artefacts from the Sukosol family’s trove and his own treasure-hunting. Art Deco meets traditional Thai in the decor: expect glossy ebony wood, ivory and cream tones, and geometric tiles alongside Buddhist sculptures, heirloom porcelains, and vintage steamer trunks. Every corner of The Siam tells a story or sparks a memory, whether it’s old maps of Siam and French Indochina in your suite or the sepia-toned royal portraits lining the corridors.
Despite its opulent historic aesthetic, The Siam feels incredibly personal and intimate – a rarity for a city hotel. With just 39 suites spread over a large estate, Bensley intentionally devoted “forty per cent of the property to public space” – lush gardens, courtyards, libraries – creating the atmosphere of a private manor rather than a hotel. “What makes The Siam so nice and different is it’s a big property with very few rooms… You feel a bit more special, not like a nameless guest,” Bensley notes. Indeed, you’re treated as a house guest of a Thai noble family. Each suite comes with a personal butler. There’s no front desk – check-in is done in your suite, over a cup of tea. Hidden nooks like a vinyl music room (complete with a turntable and vintage records) and a snooker lounge give you the sense you’re in a friend’s eccentric mansion, discovering delights at every turn. The attention to detail is meticulous: custom mosaic tiles mimic those in Paris’s Musée d’Orsay (a design inspiration for the main building), while the hotel’s logo and print materials draw from King Rama V’s royal emblem. Yet Bensley wasn’t afraid to inject whimsy alongside the nostalgia. The Siam’s Deco Bar, for example, features a dramatic installation of dozens of old gramophone horns suspended from the ceiling (as seen in the photo above), and the walls are adorned with framed vintage brass instruments and 1920s Thai movie posters. It’s a stylish collision of East and West, reflecting the cosmopolitan influences of the Rama V era with a playful Bensley twist.
Staying at The Siam is a rich cultural experience as much as a luxurious one. You can take a Thai cooking class in one of the heritage houses or even train in Muay Thai kickboxing in the hotel’s ring (the owners are avid Muay Thai enthusiasts, so they built a gym that resembles a retro boxing club). In the small on-site cinema, classic Thai and Hollywood films are screened for guests, underscoring the hotel’s East-meets-West narrative. Outside, a private rice barge shuttle boat ferries guests up the river to Bangkok’s historic sites, like the Grand Palace and Wat Pho, just minutes away. Bensley designed the boat, of course – even the transport is in character, like something out of a 1910 travelogue. Responsible tourism is also part of the story here: The Siam participates in community initiatives and runs on a “small is beautiful” principle, favouring quality over quantity to reduce strain on local resources. By resurrecting historic structures and preserving Thai art in situ, the hotel is conserving cultural heritage in a rapidly modernizing city.
For Fused magazine and travellers who crave authenticity, The Siam hits a sweet spot. It feels deeply connected to its place and past, yet it’s not stuck in time – rather, it offers a portal to old Bangkok with all the comforts of contemporary luxury. In an age of cookie-cutter high-rise hotels, The Siam stands proudly singular, a testament to Bensley’s belief that a hotel with a strong sense of place and story will forever captivate guests. It’s no surprise Bensley considers it one of the projects he’s “most excited about,” knowing it would “turn heads on the competitive hospitality market”. A decade on, The Siam is consistently ranked among Bangkok’s top hotels, beloved for its character and soul – a true design masterpiece that redefines urban luxury by looking to the past.
THE MAGIC OF BILL BENSLEY: STORYTELLING AND SUSTAINABLE LUXURY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
Whimsy and Wonder in Vietnam: InterContinental Danang
The InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort cascades down a verdant mountainside in central Vietnam. Bensley’s design spans four tiers (Sea, Earth, Sky, Heaven) connected by a funicular tram. Here, guests lounge in a pool villa overlooking the private bay, with the resort’s eclectic architecture visible across the hillside. Leave it to Bill Bensley to take a sprawling 200-room resort and turn it into an imaginative playground. The InterContinental Danang Sun Peninsula Resort opened in 2012 on Vietnam’s Son Tra Peninsula, was one of Bensley’s most ambitious undertakings – a chance to design “everything, from architecture to signage and uniforms” on a blank canvas of mountains and beach. Given carte blanche by the developer, Bensley created a whimsical realm of fantasy and tradition that has since won numerous awards (and regularly hosts world leaders for summits). The resort is dramatically set on a lush hillside tumbling to a private bay; Bensley divided it into four levels – Heaven, Sky, Earth, and Sea – each connected by a gleaming white funicular tram that ferries guests up and down. On the Heaven level, lofty restaurants and a spa peek out from the jungle canopy. Sea level, down by the sand, features poolside bars and beach clubs. Everywhere in between are rooms, suites, and villas showcasing a design that’s equal parts Vietnamese royal court, French colonial academy, and straight out of Bensley’s active imagination.
What makes InterContinental Danang so unforgettable is the sheer abundance of creative details at every turn. Bensley infused the resort with Vietnamese culture and folklore, then filtered it through his quirky lens. Traditional vernacular architecture elements – like pagoda-style roofs and ancient temple-inspired columns – are reinterpreted in bold black-and-white pavilions and gazebo structures scattered on the hillside. The reception building resembles a grand Vietnamese hall with a lofty ceiling and timber latticework, but on closer look, you’ll spot modern art pieces and a gigantic mural of a monkey in regal attire. In fact, a cheeky monkey motif runs throughout the resort, a nod to the peninsula’s resident monkey population and a vehicle for Bensley’s fun. One bar, called M Club, is designed as if by an “aristocratic monkey” – it even has an 85-seat private cinema painted banana-yellow and lit by banana-shaped sconces on the walls. (It’s delightfully absurd, in the best way.) At the fine dining restaurant, a colony of golden monkey statues clamber up the columns. Guests riding the hillside tram will notice each carriage has its own monkey mascot hood ornament, hand-sculpted and painted. This playful theme earned Danang the reputation for having “the most exciting toilets in the world,” as Bensley turned even the washrooms into fanciful spaces with monkey wall art and tongue-in-cheek details.
Yet for all the whimsy, Bensley’s design deftly honors Vietnam’s heritage. He conducted extensive research – “I went to 50 different Vietnamese temples… to bring the idea of a temple into the resort in a very light-hearted, innovative way,” Bensley notes of his inspiration. For instance, the signature Long Bar by the beach features lofty white pillars modelled after those in Hue’s historic imperial citadel, but they’re paired with surfboard-shaped hanging daybeds and funky woven basket lights, blending old and new. Many roofs across the resort are topped with stylized Sinhalese stupa shapes (a Buddhist influence), and traditional Cham patterns from central Vietnam are woven into screens and floor tiles. Local craft is celebrated through hand-made ceramics, silk lanterns, and carved wood accents at a luxury scale. Every guest room is a treasure trove of Vietnamese design references – lacquered cabinets, birdcage-inspired chandeliers, and tables inlaid with local marble. Outside, pathways are lined with tropical plants and statues of Vietnamese mythical creatures like the “Ky Lan” (a half-dragon, half-dog guardian), reinforcing a sense of place. Cultural storytelling is baked into the resort’s DNA, just as much as the fanciful touches.
InterContinental Danang brilliantly illustrates how experiential travel can be delivered in a large resort format without feeling impersonal. Despite its size, it was designed to surprise and delight at every scale. There’s a hidden yoga platform in the jungle for sunrise sessions, a “Secret Garden” with stepping stones and poetry plaques, and even a traditional Quan Ho singing stage built on a small lake for performances. The resort’s atmosphere can flip from serene to playful depending on where you wander. One moment you might be meditating by a quiet lotus pond (a nod to a Buddhist temple), and the next you’re in the billiards lounge where a giant mosaic of a Vietnamese aristocrat covers the wall – except she has a monkey’s face. Guests often spend days just exploring the property’s nooks and crannies. “It’s just so much fun. The best place for a lazy day with cocktails and a good book,” Bensley says of the beachfront Long Bar, echoing the sentiment that relaxation and amusement go hand in hand here. And because Bensley is never one to rest on his laurels, he frequently returns to Danang to add new surprises or refresh designs. As he jokes (quoting a client), “We had gay burglars break in the other night… they rearranged the furniture!” – a tongue-in-cheek way of saying the resort is always evolving in style.
Beyond the visual spectacle, the resort has a serious side in its commitment to the environment and community. The design preserved large swaths of the jungle hillside; buildings are nestled into the contours rather than flattening the landscape. Indigenous plants were used in landscaping to support local wildlife – guests might see rare red-shanked douc langur monkeys swinging in the trees (happily at home in a protected reserve that overlaps the property). Bensley’s firm also implemented eco-friendly systems for wastewater and minimized single-use plastics on-site long before it was trendy. Local artisans were employed to craft much of the décor, from ceramicists in nearby villages to basket weavers – an economic uplift for the region. This reinforces Bensley’s ethos that luxury hospitality can uplift local culture and ecology rather than exploit it. By fusing sustainability with extravagance, InterContinental Danang set a new benchmark for resort design in Vietnam. It’s a place where a guest can indulge in a private infinity pool one minute and learn about Vietnamese folk art the next; where fine dining means French-Vietnamese fusion cuisine served in a setting inspired by imperial villas. In short, it’s a resort that redefines luxury through creativity and experience, inviting travellers into a fantastical version of Vietnam that could only spring from Bill Bensley’s imagination.
THE MAGIC OF BILL BENSLEY: STORYTELLING AND SUSTAINABLE LUXURY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
The Art of Storytelling in Luxury Travel
Across these four properties – and indeed, across all his projects – Bill Bensley has shown that luxury hotels can be so much more than beautiful buildings with plush amenities. They can be vehicles for storytelling, conservation, cultural exchange, and pure fun. Each Bensley design starts with a strong narrative “DNA,” whether that’s an adventurous historical what-if or a celebration of local heritage, and this narrative is what gives the hotel its soul. Fused has long championed this blend of creative travel and authentic experience, and Bensley’s work stands as a leading example in the industry. By prioritizing a sense of place – working with local craftsmen, preserving environments, and honouring history – he ensures that even the most whimsical fantasy feels grounded and genuine. As he tells us, “Each place has a history, stories to tell… We do a deep dive into the place’s history and people, finding the most interesting characters, and bring their story alive.”
In an era where discerning travellers seek experiential travel and meaning, not just thread counts and infinity pools, Bensley’s hotels resonate deeply. They invite you to step into a story – to zipline into a conservation saga in Cambodia, play explorer in a Balinese jungle, live like old Bangkok aristocracy, or frolic in a Vietnamese wonderland. There’s a bold originality at play that positions these hotels a world apart from cookie-cutter luxury. Few designers would dare to, say, design a hotel bar as an eccentric monkey’s lair or scatter 25,000 antiques to make a hotel feel like a century-old palace – but those are exactly the kinds of inventive touches that have made Bensley a legend in hospitality design. And importantly, beneath the over-the-top flourishes, there is always substance: rigorous research, respect for local cultures, and initiatives that help sustain the environments and communities where his hotels sit.
For travellers, a stay at a Bensley property is not just a hotel night, it’s a story made tangible – one you become a part of. This is storytelling in hospitality at its most vibrant, and it’s why Bensley’s name has become synonymous with experiential luxury in Southeast Asia. As a leading voice in contemporary luxury travel coverage, Fused celebrates visionaries like Bensley who push boundaries and remind us that travel can inspire, educate, and delight on a profoundly human level. Imperfections, surprises, and all, these hotels feel alive. They spark joy and curiosity, urging you to explore just a bit further, stay out a bit later, and notice the details. And when you depart, you carry a piece of the story with you – a lasting memory of a place that touched your heart with its creativity, character, and conscience. In the end, that’s the true luxury Bensley offers: experiences that enrich not only the guests but also the world they’re visiting, one magical hotel at a time.
THE MAGIC OF BILL BENSLEY: STORYTELLING AND SUSTAINABLE LUXURY IN SOUTHEAST ASIA
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