Key Takeaways:
- The journalist-turned-hotelier: Zecha spent 20 years in publishing before entering hospitality at 40 – proving the industry’s most influential designer never went to hotel school
- The $4 million bet banks refused: When lenders rejected a 40-room hotel as “impractical” in 1988, Zecha self-funded Amanpuri and charged five times local rates – accidentally inventing boutique luxury
- The 92-year-old who won’t retire: Six years after selling Aman, Zecha launched two new hotel brands and still scouts remote beaches for his next property
Most hoteliers spend decades climbing corporate ladders. Adrian Zecha spent his twenties working for Time magazine in Tokyo and his thirties running publishing houses across Asia before walking onto Pansea Beach in Phuket at age 55 and accidentally inventing modern boutique luxury.
The year was 1988. Zecha was looking for land to build a holiday home. What he found was a coconut plantation with views that seemed too extraordinary to keep private. What he built – with $4 million of his own money after every bank said no – would spawn an entire hospitality movement and one of the industry’s most devoted followings.
The publisher who became a hotelier
According to multiple hospitality industry sources, Zecha entered the hotel business almost by accident. Born in 1933 into Indonesia’s Lauw-Sim-Zecha family – part of the colonial-era Cabang Atas gentry – he earned a master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University and worked at Time magazine’s Tokyo bureau from 1956 to 1958. In 1961, he launched Asia Magazine, the first regional newspaper colour supplement in Asia. When the magazine faltered a year later, Zecha persuaded Rupert Murdoch to invest – marking the media mogul’s first Asian venture.
By 1970, Zecha had founded Orientations, a magazine focused on Asian arts that still publishes today. Then, at 39, a friend asked him to help Marriott broker land deals in Asia. According to industry accounts, this scouting work led Zecha to co-found Regent International Hotels in 1972 with Robert Burns and Georg Rafael.
The trio built 12 luxury hotels before Zecha sold his 30 per cent stake for $30 million in 1986. He was 53 years old. Most people would retire. Zecha went looking for property in Thailand.
The bank that said no
Walking along Pansea Beach in Phuket, Zecha found a coconut plantation occupying prime waterfront. Plans to build a personal retreat evolved into something larger – a small boutique resort in partnership with longtime friend Anil Thadani. According to multiple sources, no banks would lend for the project. The reason: they wanted to build only 40 rooms instead of the 500-room hotels that financial institutions considered viable.
Zecha and Thadani invested their own money – approximately $4 million. They hired American architect Ed Tuttle. Together they created something that didn’t exist in 1988 luxury hospitality: scattered pavilions across a coconut grove, minimalist Thai-inspired design, radical emphasis on space and privacy over opulent decoration.
Amanpuri opened in January 1988. According to industry records, nightly rates were reportedly five times higher than local competitors.
It worked.
“As an ex-journalist, you stick to the facts. Not to speculation.”
Building the blueprint
The success of Amanpuri, followed by Amandari in Bali in 1989, confirmed what Zecha had intuited: there was demand for intimate boutique resorts in remote, natural settings that felt more like private homes than hotels. By 1992, the portfolio had expanded to include properties in Indonesia, Bora Bora and Courchevel.
According to hospitality industry accounts, Zecha’s approach differed fundamentally from conventional luxury. He avoided replications – each Aman property responded to its specific location. He emphasised cultural preservation, acquiring and restoring heritage structures like Cambodia’s ruined guest villa built by King Sihanouk in the 1960s.
“If there’s anything I have contributed, I spot the sites,” Zecha told HOTELS Magazine in 2019. Former Aman executive director Trina Dingler explained what separated Aman properties: Zecha’s geographic literacy. “He was so well-travelled.”
Raymond Bickson, former CEO of Taj Hotel Group, started working for Zecha at Regent in 1979 fresh out of hotel school. “He raised the bar with Aman,” Bickson told HOTELS Magazine. “He created something different.”
The departure and returns
In 1992, Zecha sold a controlling interest in Silverlink – the holding company that owned Aman Resorts – to Clement Vaturi. According to multiple sources, Zecha retained 45 per cent. The arrangement worked until Vaturi’s controlling interest came under Los Angeles-based Colony Capital. Disputes emerged. According to industry records, Zecha resigned as CEO in 1998.
He didn’t stay away long. By 2000, Colony Capital and Vaturi had settled their lawsuit. Vaturi sold his shares to Lee Hing Development, a Hong Kong property fund affiliated with Thadani’s Schroder Capital Partners. According to company records, Zecha returned as chairman and CEO. Over the next seven years, Aman launched properties in Cambodia, India, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and the Caribbean.
On 27 November 2007, according to industry filings, DLF – India’s largest real estate company – acquired Lee Hing’s controlling stake in Aman Resorts for $400 million, including $150 million in debt. Zecha remained as chairman.
The 2008 financial crisis derailed DLF’s expansion plans. By 2010, the company was seeking to reduce debt. According to Fortune magazine, Zecha attempted to buy the company back but couldn’t raise financing. In early February 2014, DLF sold Aman Resorts for $358 million to Aman Resorts Group, a joint venture between Russian businessman Vladislav Doronin and American entrepreneur Omar Amanat.
What followed was litigation. According to court records reported by Fortune, Doronin and Amanat battled for control in New York and London courts. A London High Court injunction briefly reinstated Zecha as CEO for 17 days in July 2014 before a March 2016 settlement confirmed Doronin in sole control.
Zecha was 81 years old. Again, most people would retire.
The next chapter
In February 2017, according to company announcements, Zecha launched Azerai – a new hotel brand aimed at providing “more affordable lodging for adventurers and the younger crowd.” The name combines his initials (AZ) with the latter part of “caravanserai,” the Persian word for resting places along ancient trade routes.
“A long time ago I asked Hans Jenni, my co-founder at GHM Hotels, whether it was possible to create hotels with the same sensibility as Aman but at a different price point,” Zecha told Tatler Asia in 2019. “I said it’s because I have friends who have great taste but without the means to stay at an Aman.”
Azerai’s first property opened in Luang Prabang, Laos in January 2017, followed by locations in Vietnam. In 2020, according to company records, Zecha partnered with Japan’s Naru Developments to launch Azumi, a ryokan-inspired hotel brand. The debut property, Azumi Setoda, opened on Ikuchijima Island in March 2021.
At 92, still building
In September 2025, according to TTR Weekly, Zecha visited Azerai’s Vietnam properties ahead of Azerai Ke Ga Bay’s fifth anniversary. Now 92, he addressed the question people routinely ask: “I can’t sit there and do nothing,” he said. “I feel that my new journey is just beginning. There’s so much to do. God gives you life, you should use it.”
Strolling through the ginger forest at the 56-key Azerai Ke Ga Bay, Zecha explained that embracing nature and local culture remain central to his philosophy. “Nature brings me tranquillity and peace, supporting my quest to explore new destinations.”
For a man who entered the hotel business at 40 after two decades in journalism, who funded his first boutique resort with his own money when banks said no, who sold and returned to companies multiple times, and who launched two new hotel brands in his eighties, this persistence fits a pattern.
In a 2019 interview with HOTELS Magazine at his colonial-era home in Singapore, flanked by iced tea and Cuban cigars, Zecha offered his own assessment: “Why don’t you tell them that I am the luckiest guy in the world? I’m not very bright, but I’m not dumb, but I’m very, very lucky.”
The industry disagrees. Over four decades, Zecha hasn’t just built hotels. He’s rewritten the rules of what luxury hospitality can be – proving that sometimes the most transformative ideas come not from hotel school graduates but from journalists who know how to spot a good story when they walk along a beach.
