Bill Bensley
Where Bill Bensley goes, others follow. The designer has been credited with redefining the luxury hotel resort experience in Southeast Asia. His Four Seasons Tented Camp Golden Triangle in Thailand (2006), an all-inclusive jungle camp, launched the trend for luxurious tented camps and was voted the number one hotel in the world three years in a row by Condé Nast Traveler’s readers.
While in the early part of his career, Bensley saw hotels as theatrical stages to transport guests into a world of exotic luxury, he’s now very much focused on creating memorable experiences while championing sustainability. “My wheelhouse is migrating from architecture to the designing of experiences... and they tend to be those that I would love to do myself,” he says.
Take the recent Bensley Collection – Shinta Mani Wild, a luxurious 15-tent camp deep in the Cambodian rainforest designed as a place of exploration and learning, that includes opportunities to join Wildlife Alliance rangers on anti-poaching patrols. Showcasing his usual playfulness, the designer has added a 380m zip line through the forest canopy and over a river and waterfalls to the landing zone bar as a unique way to enter the camp.
Even after designing more than 200 hotels and resorts around the world, Bensley is still brimming with ideas. The Bangkok-based designer is working on creating a new travel experience in a UNESCO protected wilderness park near Guangzhou where guests will stay a minimum of three nights: the first over an estuary in a stilted water villa, then travelling on a luxury houseboat with a butler and a cook to arrive at a refurbished Ming Dynasty village with courtyard houses where guests spend the third and remaining nights. He is currently working on upcycling railway carriages for the new Hill Station, Khao Yai, Nakhonratchasima in Thailand, which he believes could be “the next big fad after tents”.
“I live by the simple idea that if it’s not fun then don’t do it. Instinctively I am the very curious sort that wants to stay hungry and young,” he muses, adding he finds inspiration in his rich travel experiences, from swimming with pink porpoises and piranhas in the Amazon to running after herds of yak on the Russian Mongolian border or dancing with the natives in Fiji.
The Storyteller
“I live by the simple idea that if it’s not fun then don’t do it.”