Ultra Luxury Hotels · Swiss HQ · Est. 1988
Aman
Place of peace.
Adrian Zecha — an Indonesian hotelier of Chinese descent born in Sukabumi — never intended to create an empire. In the mid-1980s, he simply wanted a private holiday retreat on the Phuket coast of Thailand. The site he found on Pansea Beach was too beautiful to keep to himself. In 1988, together with a small group of friends who funded the project personally (no bank would lend for a resort with so few rooms), Zecha opened Amanpuri — 'place of peace' in Sanskrit. Nightly rates were reportedly five times those of local competitors. The hotel was full almost immediately.
Amanpuri established a template that no one had articulated before: a luxury resort where the primary amenity was not a water park or a casino but space, privacy, quiet, and the natural landscape itself. The resort had just 40 pavilions — designed by American architect Ed Tuttle using Thai temple architecture, teak and local stone — scattered across a coconut grove. Staff outnumbered guests by a ratio of six to one. There were no grand lobbies, no organised activities, no sense of anything being performed. You arrived, and the place held you.
Word spread almost entirely by word of mouth. Owners of extraordinary sites began approaching Zecha to be guardians of their properties. Aman expanded to Bali (Amandari, 1989), Bora Bora, the French Alps, Cambodia, Bhutan, India and Sri Lanka — always with the same template: fewer than 55 rooms or suites, architecture that belongs to its landscape, service that anticipates without intruding. The 'Amanjunkie' tribe — repeat guests who travel specifically to experience new Aman properties — became one of the most discussed phenomena in luxury travel. Aman now operates 36 properties in 20 countries.
Notable Aman properties include Amanpuri (Phuket, Thailand), Amangiri (Utah, USA — built into a canyon landscape of extraordinary drama), Aman Venice (the 16th-century Palazzo Papadopoli on the Grand Canal), Aman Tokyo (in the Otemachi Tower, with views across the Imperial Palace gardens), and Aman New York (in the Crown Building on Fifth Avenue). Each is architecturally distinctive. All share the same Aman silence. Entry-level suites at most properties begin above $1,000 per night; Aman Tokyo and Aman New York start above $2,000.
Aman has expanded beyond hotels into residences — private apartments and homes adjacent to or within Aman properties — and is launching Aman at Sea in 2027: a 180-metre superyacht with 47 suites, two helipads and rates beginning at $7,700 per person per night. Aman Properties are also available for private hire.