Zecha, now 88, has developed more than 100 luxury hotels around the world / Photo Darren Gabriel Leow:Tatler Singapore
There’s perhaps no one who’s influenced the hospitality market in Asia as much as Adrian Zecha. The Indonesian-born businessman has developed more than 100 luxury hotels around the world. He’s been a key figure for brands such as Regent, one of the first high-end chains in Asia which was sold to Four Seasons and is now owned by IHG; and Rafael, which was acquired by Mandarin Oriental.
He’s possibly most well known in the wellness arena as the founder of Aman resorts, the boutique resort chain which has always placed an emphasis on location and spa despite having smaller properties.
Zecha launched the iconic brand in Phuket in December 1987 and by the time he left the company in 2014, it had properties in 22 countries. “Amanpuri [the first property in Phuket] is 33 years old now,” he says. “It’s still relevant today and its success has been amazing.”
Things went quiet for Zecha after Aman. He took a couple of years to take stock and think about his next move. Now 88 years old, he’d be forgiven for not wanting to start anything new. But in a recent interview with the renowned hospitality management university Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (see p14) he revealed that’s certainly not the case, before sharing details about new projects and the secret to his success.
“I’ve never thought of retirement,” he told interviewer Joshua Gan, EHL’s regional director in the Asia Pacific. “If you’re bored or unhappy, that’s another matter. But if you’re happy doing what you’re doing, then there’s no retirement.”
Modern ryokan Such is Zecha’s reputation, that when he puts his name to something new it garners much interest. His latest brand, Azumi, was unveiled in March and has been created as a modern take on traditional Japanese ryokans – inns with hot springs.
“It’s a long love story,” Zecha tells EHL, detailing how he started out as a journalist before becoming a hotelier. “My first introduction to Japan came in 1956. I was sent by Time Out magazine to work in Tokyo… and I fell in love with the ryokan.
“A ryokan never has more than 20-30 rooms and it’s always family run. When things get too much, [the Japanese] go and spend a weekend in their favourite ryokan. It’s for you to get away from everything else and you take many baths because of the hot springs.”
Sixty years after his first visit he says there are still 500-600 ryokans across the country, but they’re having a hard time “because the younger generations in Japan don’t have the same lifestyle… but it’s a fantastic experience and I want to preserve it.”
Azumi is situated in Setoda, a fishing village on the small island of Ikuchijima, and has been co-founded with Japanese hospitality group Naru Developments. It’s taken three years to sensitively restore the 140-year-old residential compound it’s based in and across the road is the Yubune bathhouse which Naru has also transformed.
The main building offers a mix of contemporary architecture by Kyoto-based Shiro Miura, service, food, wellness and cultural programming to appeal to today’s travellers. There are 18 suites and four duplexes but, unlike traditional inns where guests usually stay in their own rooms, it also features open and secluded public spaces for guests to relax in and enjoy.
Yubune has 14 bathing rooms and in a gesture to the wider community of Setoda, the hot springs will serve as a public bathhouse. Guests will be invited to learn about and experience Japanese bathing culture, lemon and salt bathing and saunas.
Zecha says: “We’re using the Azumi brand for this first one and hopefully, as with before, it will be the first of many.”
Affordable luxury Azumi Setoda launched at the same time as Zecha’s third Azerai property, Azerai Ke Ga Bay in Vietnam. He first revealed the Azerai concept in 2017, three years after leaving Aman. “I didn’t want to do something too quickly after Aman,” he says. “I could have just continued something like it but with a different brand, but I didn’t want people to compare... So I thought ‘OK, let’s do an affordable Aman’. I thought it would be interesting because it’s a larger market.”
The seeds were first sown six years earlier, he tells EHL, when a similar offering was trialled by GHM. “That was the Chedi in Bali,” he says. “It turned out to be a fantastic success and then became an Alila, which was subsequently bought by Hyatt.”
All Azerais are located in Vietnam so far, although there was also one in Laos which was taken over by Minor.
Azerai Can Tho debuted in southern Vietnam in early 2018, La Residence Hue in central Vietnam in 2019 and most recently, Azerai Ke Ga Bay in the east in March.
They range from 46-122 bedrooms/suites and all have sizeable spas with six to 10 treatment rooms on top of additional wellness facilities and locally inspired therapies.
The idea is to offer guests “simple elegance, refined design and discreet attentive service in places of unique beauty and cultural interest”.
Rates start at around US$220 (€179, £155) a night compared to US$900 (€736, £637) at Aman’s Vietnamese property Amanoi.
“Each of them is different because they relate to the local culture,” Zecha says. “And also because all of them, except the first one, are based on existing buildings.” To speed up the rollout Zecha says the future focus will be on refurbishments rather than building something from scratch. “I don’t have time to build brand new ones because I haven’t got another 30 years in the business!”
Secrets to success? For Zecha, there are several elements to consider for a successful hotel. “You have to be relevant to where it [the hotel] is,” he explains. “You can do something totally different outside of the culture of the place, but I thought that would be wrong to do. Because I think people who come to stay want to experience the place and the culture that’s there.”
This is an ethos he’s held since his journalism days. First starting out at New York-based Time Out magazine before launching his own title, Asia Magazine, to reintroduce the Asian culture to a new generation of Asians who’d studied at western universities. “Take a country like Thailand, which was never colonised,” he explains. “If you were to say Beethoven or Shakespeare at the time, people would know who they were. But they didn’t know anything about the music or literature of neighbouring countries like Burma.”
Asia Magazine ran for 39 years and was one of Rupert Murdoch’s first Asian investments. The regional knowledge and network Zecha accumulated, then led Marriott to headhunt him to grow its Regent brand internationally. This marked his foray into the hospitality arena. He became a land broker for the group and truly learned the ropes of the hotel business.
Zecha also clarifies that part of being relevant to where the hotel is located is hiring people from the local region. “We try to always have 90 to 95 per cent of the people who make it happen from the place. You have to have international hoteliers as well, of course, people who’ve been trained properly. But otherwise, we seldom go beyond the local population.”
And it’s the service element, he says, which gives a hotel its special touch. “It’s not just about doing it correctly, it’s about that unspoken word and the way in which it’s done,” he adds.
It will come back When asked about the future of global hospitality, given the pandemic, Zecha is confident that there will be a rebound eventually.
“I hear too often the question, ‘how do you cope with the new normal’ and I’m always amused by that,” he concludes. “Obviously, we can’t do what we’ve been used to doing right now. But I don’t believe we’ll forget what made us happy in our leisure and travel time.
“It [business] will come back. People won’t forget what they were doing only last year. They’ll go back to what they were doing. I don’t think it will change.”
About Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne
Founded in 1893, Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) has more than 25,000 alumni worldwide and over 120 nationalities among its students. It was one of the world’s first hospitality management schools, providing undergraduate and graduate programmes – including a Spa Management Major – at its campuses in Lausanne and Chur-Passugg, Switzerland, and in Singapore.
Spa people: Adrian Zecha
Adrian Zecha talks about his latest brands and why he's not planning retirement anytime soon
Spa people: Michala Chatel
Ultima Collection's managing partner explains why and how it's adding wellness options to exclusively rented villas and properties
Spa people: Stephanie Stahl
The Ace of Air co-founder tackles sustainability head on with a 'buy the product rent the packaging' scheme
Menu engineering: At your service
Art and sauna bathing collide in a Japanese exhibition; Banyan Tree rolls out its Wellbeing Sanctuary concept globally
Top team: Capella
Neena Dhillon talks to the owning company and senior executives from this burgeoning Asian hospitality brand with a passion for wellness
Ask an Expert: Treating Long COVID
One in 20 people who've had coronavirus are still battling its side effects for three months or more. How can spas help?
Promotion: Art of Cryo: Cool night's sleep
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Interview: Stelian Iacob
Therme Group's COO tells Katie Barnes how it's making the traditional thermal facility model more relevant to today's consumers
First person: Yasuragi
Spas in Sweden stayed open in the pandemic, but does the nation still have an appetite for wellness? Andrew Gibson investigates at this Japanese concept spa hotel near Stockholm
Interview: Tammy Pahel
The VP of spa at Carillon Miami candidly shares some of the challenges of the past year with Lisa Starr and explains why she's investing in touchless innovations
Spa survey: Wellness time
A new consumer survey shows how people's attitudes towards wellness and spas have changed. Mindbody's Katherine Wernet
Focus on: IV nutrition therapy
Is IV nutrition therapy as credible as some spas claim? Lisa Starr investigates this increasingly popular treatment
Zecha, now 88, has developed more than 100 luxury hotels around the world / Photo Darren Gabriel Leow:Tatler Singapore
There’s perhaps no one who’s influenced the hospitality market in Asia as much as Adrian Zecha. The Indonesian-born businessman has developed more than 100 luxury hotels around the world. He’s been a key figure for brands such as Regent, one of the first high-end chains in Asia which was sold to Four Seasons and is now owned by IHG; and Rafael, which was acquired by Mandarin Oriental.
He’s possibly most well known in the wellness arena as the founder of Aman resorts, the boutique resort chain which has always placed an emphasis on location and spa despite having smaller properties.
Zecha launched the iconic brand in Phuket in December 1987 and by the time he left the company in 2014, it had properties in 22 countries. “Amanpuri [the first property in Phuket] is 33 years old now,” he says. “It’s still relevant today and its success has been amazing.”
Things went quiet for Zecha after Aman. He took a couple of years to take stock and think about his next move. Now 88 years old, he’d be forgiven for not wanting to start anything new. But in a recent interview with the renowned hospitality management university Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (see p14) he revealed that’s certainly not the case, before sharing details about new projects and the secret to his success.
“I’ve never thought of retirement,” he told interviewer Joshua Gan, EHL’s regional director in the Asia Pacific. “If you’re bored or unhappy, that’s another matter. But if you’re happy doing what you’re doing, then there’s no retirement.”
Modern ryokan Such is Zecha’s reputation, that when he puts his name to something new it garners much interest. His latest brand, Azumi, was unveiled in March and has been created as a modern take on traditional Japanese ryokans – inns with hot springs.
“It’s a long love story,” Zecha tells EHL, detailing how he started out as a journalist before becoming a hotelier. “My first introduction to Japan came in 1956. I was sent by Time Out magazine to work in Tokyo… and I fell in love with the ryokan.
“A ryokan never has more than 20-30 rooms and it’s always family run. When things get too much, [the Japanese] go and spend a weekend in their favourite ryokan. It’s for you to get away from everything else and you take many baths because of the hot springs.”
Sixty years after his first visit he says there are still 500-600 ryokans across the country, but they’re having a hard time “because the younger generations in Japan don’t have the same lifestyle… but it’s a fantastic experience and I want to preserve it.”
Azumi is situated in Setoda, a fishing village on the small island of Ikuchijima, and has been co-founded with Japanese hospitality group Naru Developments. It’s taken three years to sensitively restore the 140-year-old residential compound it’s based in and across the road is the Yubune bathhouse which Naru has also transformed.
The main building offers a mix of contemporary architecture by Kyoto-based Shiro Miura, service, food, wellness and cultural programming to appeal to today’s travellers. There are 18 suites and four duplexes but, unlike traditional inns where guests usually stay in their own rooms, it also features open and secluded public spaces for guests to relax in and enjoy.
Yubune has 14 bathing rooms and in a gesture to the wider community of Setoda, the hot springs will serve as a public bathhouse. Guests will be invited to learn about and experience Japanese bathing culture, lemon and salt bathing and saunas.
Zecha says: “We’re using the Azumi brand for this first one and hopefully, as with before, it will be the first of many.”
Affordable luxury Azumi Setoda launched at the same time as Zecha’s third Azerai property, Azerai Ke Ga Bay in Vietnam. He first revealed the Azerai concept in 2017, three years after leaving Aman. “I didn’t want to do something too quickly after Aman,” he says. “I could have just continued something like it but with a different brand, but I didn’t want people to compare... So I thought ‘OK, let’s do an affordable Aman’. I thought it would be interesting because it’s a larger market.”
The seeds were first sown six years earlier, he tells EHL, when a similar offering was trialled by GHM. “That was the Chedi in Bali,” he says. “It turned out to be a fantastic success and then became an Alila, which was subsequently bought by Hyatt.”
All Azerais are located in Vietnam so far, although there was also one in Laos which was taken over by Minor.
Azerai Can Tho debuted in southern Vietnam in early 2018, La Residence Hue in central Vietnam in 2019 and most recently, Azerai Ke Ga Bay in the east in March.
They range from 46-122 bedrooms/suites and all have sizeable spas with six to 10 treatment rooms on top of additional wellness facilities and locally inspired therapies.
The idea is to offer guests “simple elegance, refined design and discreet attentive service in places of unique beauty and cultural interest”.
Rates start at around US$220 (€179, £155) a night compared to US$900 (€736, £637) at Aman’s Vietnamese property Amanoi.
“Each of them is different because they relate to the local culture,” Zecha says. “And also because all of them, except the first one, are based on existing buildings.” To speed up the rollout Zecha says the future focus will be on refurbishments rather than building something from scratch. “I don’t have time to build brand new ones because I haven’t got another 30 years in the business!”
Secrets to success? For Zecha, there are several elements to consider for a successful hotel. “You have to be relevant to where it [the hotel] is,” he explains. “You can do something totally different outside of the culture of the place, but I thought that would be wrong to do. Because I think people who come to stay want to experience the place and the culture that’s there.”
This is an ethos he’s held since his journalism days. First starting out at New York-based Time Out magazine before launching his own title, Asia Magazine, to reintroduce the Asian culture to a new generation of Asians who’d studied at western universities. “Take a country like Thailand, which was never colonised,” he explains. “If you were to say Beethoven or Shakespeare at the time, people would know who they were. But they didn’t know anything about the music or literature of neighbouring countries like Burma.”
Asia Magazine ran for 39 years and was one of Rupert Murdoch’s first Asian investments. The regional knowledge and network Zecha accumulated, then led Marriott to headhunt him to grow its Regent brand internationally. This marked his foray into the hospitality arena. He became a land broker for the group and truly learned the ropes of the hotel business.
Zecha also clarifies that part of being relevant to where the hotel is located is hiring people from the local region. “We try to always have 90 to 95 per cent of the people who make it happen from the place. You have to have international hoteliers as well, of course, people who’ve been trained properly. But otherwise, we seldom go beyond the local population.”
And it’s the service element, he says, which gives a hotel its special touch. “It’s not just about doing it correctly, it’s about that unspoken word and the way in which it’s done,” he adds.
It will come back When asked about the future of global hospitality, given the pandemic, Zecha is confident that there will be a rebound eventually.
“I hear too often the question, ‘how do you cope with the new normal’ and I’m always amused by that,” he concludes. “Obviously, we can’t do what we’ve been used to doing right now. But I don’t believe we’ll forget what made us happy in our leisure and travel time.
“It [business] will come back. People won’t forget what they were doing only last year. They’ll go back to what they were doing. I don’t think it will change.”
About Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne
Founded in 1893, Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) has more than 25,000 alumni worldwide and over 120 nationalities among its students. It was one of the world’s first hospitality management schools, providing undergraduate and graduate programmes – including a Spa Management Major – at its campuses in Lausanne and Chur-Passugg, Switzerland, and in Singapore.
Spa people: Adrian Zecha
Adrian Zecha talks about his latest brands and why he's not planning retirement anytime soon
Spa people: Michala Chatel
Ultima Collection's managing partner explains why and how it's adding wellness options to exclusively rented villas and properties
Spa people: Stephanie Stahl
The Ace of Air co-founder tackles sustainability head on with a 'buy the product rent the packaging' scheme
Menu engineering: At your service
Art and sauna bathing collide in a Japanese exhibition; Banyan Tree rolls out its Wellbeing Sanctuary concept globally
Top team: Capella
Neena Dhillon talks to the owning company and senior executives from this burgeoning Asian hospitality brand with a passion for wellness
Ask an Expert: Treating Long COVID
One in 20 people who've had coronavirus are still battling its side effects for three months or more. How can spas help?
Promotion: Art of Cryo: Cool night's sleep
High-performance cryo chamber specialist Art of Cryo joins forces with leading bed manufacturer Samina to launch cryo centres for sleep health
Interview: Stelian Iacob
Therme Group's COO tells Katie Barnes how it's making the traditional thermal facility model more relevant to today's consumers
First person: Yasuragi
Spas in Sweden stayed open in the pandemic, but does the nation still have an appetite for wellness? Andrew Gibson investigates at this Japanese concept spa hotel near Stockholm
Interview: Tammy Pahel
The VP of spa at Carillon Miami candidly shares some of the challenges of the past year with Lisa Starr and explains why she's investing in touchless innovations
Spa survey: Wellness time
A new consumer survey shows how people's attitudes towards wellness and spas have changed. Mindbody's Katherine Wernet
Focus on: IV nutrition therapy
Is IV nutrition therapy as credible as some spas claim? Lisa Starr investigates this increasingly popular treatment
A US$50 million (£44.2 million, €51.2 million) transformation of Chicago's historic McCormick
Mansion has created a new destination that combines live magic, immersive theatre, dining and
private membership under one roof.
The Montana Historical Society has officially celebrated the opening of its new Montana
Heritage
Center, a US$107 million (£79 million, €92 million) destination that combines immersive
storytelling with cutting-edge audiovisual technology to bring the sta
San Antonio Zoo has reported a US$283 million economic impact for 2025, following a decade-
long transformation programme that has seen almost US$200 million invested into the Texas
attraction.
Plans for the AU$180 million redevelopment of Reef HQ Aquarium in Townsville, Australia, are
progressing, with the project set to transform the attraction into a global centre for reef
education and conservation.
Abu Dhabi-based investment firm Mubadala Capital has made a binding, fully financed
€1 billion
offer to acquire Pierre and Vacances SA, the European holiday resort operator behind the
continental European Center Parcs business.
Disney has reaffirmed its commitment to investing US$30 billion in its US parks and cruise
business by 2033, using new America250 celebrations to underline the role its attractions play
in supporting jobs, tourism and economic growth.
Expo 2030 Riyadh is being planned as a permanent visitor destination, with organisers
confirming the six-million-square-metre site will become a Global Village after the event closes.
The owner of one of Australia's best-known waterparks has acquired a major competitor,
creating a new attractions business spanning two of the country's largest visitor destinations.
The Toverland theme park in the Netherlands has announced a €98m expansion programme
that will add a resort, new attractions and staff facilities as it pursues plans to become a multi-
day destination.
Hotel de France, located on the British Isle of Jersey, has created a wellness retreat package
that includes a hot yoga session that will take place in Jersey Zoo’s butterfly sanctuary.
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