Best Hospitality Sustainable Hotel 2020
Shinta Mani Wild
Bill Bensley is not only a congenial hotel designer, but also an ambitious conservationist. He proves this with the hotels in his Bensley Collection, including the Shinta Mani Wild. Luxury glamping in the Cardamon National Park is the order of the day here - a unique experience! www.bensleycollection.com
"Luxury is dead", categorically asserts the internationally successful US designer and architect Bill Bensley - referring, of course, to a traditional definition of wealth and fashion. Bensley's current concern to support people in the emerging countries of Southeast Asia by developing environmentally conscious luxury resorts goes one step further. His masterpiece in Cambodia is the high-priced glamping resort "Shinta Mani Wild" - which will never turn a profit: The sole aim and purpose of its existence is the preservation of Cambodia's Cardamom National Park and thus the last rainforest in Southeast Asia.
Wild & good: the Shinta Mani Foundation In the 1960s, the fantastic beaches south of Sihanoukville were known as "Indochina's Riviera". Fortunately, not only major Chinese investors but also entrepreneurs with environmental protection projects are currently coming onto the scene here. In addition to the operators of the new luxury islands Song Saa, Six Senses Krabey Island and Alila Villas Koh Russey, the dazzling landscape and hotel designer, adventurer and philanthropist Bill Bensley has also fallen in love with Cambodia's land and people. The designer is a passionate supporter of the Shinta Mani Foundation, founded by Cambodian businessman Sokoun Chanpreda, whose mission since 2004 has been to promote education, healthcare, organic farming and the local population.
Just a two-hour drive north from the coast, the creative jack-of-all-trades has embarked on a life project. He developed and has owned a spectacular luxury tent camp in the south of Cardamom National Park since December 2018. Guests are driven there in 50s retro jeeps. Or they dare to glide over treetops and waterfalls on a 400-metre zipline, only to land directly in the open lobby between leather-upholstered armchairs and nostalgic overseas suitcases. The luxury adventure is worth it, especially when you know that as a paying guest you are helping to save the last remaining rainforest in Southeast Asia from a terrible future.
Only 15 luxury tents, each 100 m² in size, are lined up far apart from each other along the Tmor Rung River, so that guests can feel like they are a direct part of nature in their chic retro outdoor bathtub to the gurgling sound of the river and waterfalls. This kind of luxury is expensive, but it feels really good! Because Bill Bensley has no intention of ever making this exquisite glamping experience profitable. The income generated by the guests is solely for the benefit of the rainforest, its animals and inhabitants.
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As part of our annual Connoisseur Circle Hospitality Awards, the best hotels in the area of sustainability were also recognized for the first time this year. The nominees included Bawah Reserve in Indonesia, The Brando in French Polynesia, Wa Ale Island Resort in Myanmar, Six Senses in Bhutan and our winner: Shinta Mani Wild in Cambodia.
